


The Only Hell I Know is Without You

by MrSandman



Category: Doctor Who (2005), Torchwood
Genre: (but very toned down compared to canon), (it's jack it's always jack), (partial canon rewrite), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Canon Rewrite, Canon-Typical Violence, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Misunderstandings, Other, Polyamory, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, Temporary Character Death, The Year That Never Was (Doctor Who)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:01:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 29,837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28465725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrSandman/pseuds/MrSandman
Summary: In a world in which everyone is born with the first words their soulmate says to them written on their skin, Owen, Jack and Ianto grapple with secrets, longing, and secret longing as they fight to protect the city of Cardiff from extraterrestrial threats, while figuring themselves out along the way.
Relationships: Gwen Cooper/Rhys Williams, Jack Harkness/Ianto Jones, Jack Harkness/Owen Harper, Jack Harkness/Owen Harper/Ianto Jones, Owen Harper/Ianto Jones
Comments: 8
Kudos: 38
Collections: Torchwood Fan Fests: 2020 Holiday Exchange





	1. Chapter 1 - Prologue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Jackdaw816](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jackdaw816/gifts).



> Hooo boy. Hoooooooo boy. 
> 
> So this is my offering for the Torchwood Fan Fests 2020 Holiday Exchange, for the prompt "soulmates AU but with a polyam ship", which somehow blossomed (or exploded, take your pick) into this 30k-word extravaganza of angst, fluff, partially rewriting canon (from mid-series 1 to the start of series 2) and everything in between? I really, really hope you like this, Zoe - I know it's not all that festive, but I hope it brings you joy nonetheless!
> 
> A huuuuge thank you to Nik / princessoftheworlds for all the friendship, hand-holding, encouragement, admonishments when I should have been asleep and was instead writing this, and general awesomeness - I couldn't have done it without you!
> 
> Title from Die For You by STARSET. Unbeta-ed (so any and all mistakes are mine)!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Owen, Ianto and Jack reflect on the nature of their unusual relationship.

Two words: “I’m sorry.” Two simple bloody words uttered in a hospital corridor kick-started this whole mess, Owen Harper thinks as he sits curled against the stairs leading down into the autopsy bay. He hopes beyond hope that no one comes to find him before Jack, wherever he is, wakes with a gasp of breath so great that only a dead man could ever have need of it. 

Well, he amends, Jack’s not a dead man by that stage, but the point still stands. He may be in agony, but let the record state that lacking in a rather twisted sense of humour, he ain’t. God, he hopes Jack will wake up soon. He’s not sure how long he can stand feeling like he’s simultaneously being dunked in a pool of ice water and immersed in molten lava, like every nerve ending in his body might be about to fizzle out forever, lost along with another. _With his soulmate,_ Owen thinks sourly, _or soulmates in this case, plural._ Trust him to end up with a configuration of kindred spirits that can only be the result of some sick cosmic joke. 

Speaking of kindred spirits, he knows he should really be with Ianto right now, holding him as he too shakes and shivers with the pain of another of Jack’s deaths. But this is evidently a particularly unpleasant death - he’d barely been able to get himself down the stairs without braining himself on the floor of the autopsy room. There’s no way he can maintain any semblance of composure right now around Ianto, and quite frankly Owen would rather feed himself to a Weevil than give Ianto a chance to be his usual infuriatingly, amazingly astute self and diagnose Torchwood Three’s resident doctor. 

Owen thinks of the words that follow the curve of his bicep, caressed and revered countless times, and the two words that he keeps hidden just above his hairline like a shameful secret. Oy, what a spectacular fucking mess he’s in. 

***

Six words. Under normal circumstances, Ianto Jones is indescribably fond of those six words, and indeed of the man who uttered them in the woods all that time ago. Right now, however, Ianto isn’t feeling quite so positively disposed towards Captain Jack Harkness. 

Right now? Ianto is livid. No, actually, he’s not sure that encapsulates it completely, because he is beyond livid - he is _incandescent_ with rage. 

“What were you _thinking_?” he yells as a weary-looking Jack stumbles off the invisible lift platform, his clothes drenched in blood. Ianto strides towards Jack until he’s mere inches away, practically vibrating with hurt and anger. 

“Look, Ianto, I’m sorry about the coat. I’ll organise the dry cleaning this time, to make it up to you! I know you always have to-”

Ianto cuts Jack off by placing his hands either side of Jack’s face and pulling him into a bruising kiss. He pulls back and angles Jack’s head this way and that, looking him over for injuries that he knows full well will have healed before Jack even came back to life. Then, he places a hand on the back of Jack’s neck and pulls him in, avoiding the worst of the blood but still managing to embrace his partner. 

“I’m not talking about the _coat_ , _twpsyn!”_ Ianto rolls his eyes, unable to prevent the usual fondness from creeping ever so slightly into his tone, but he frowns again when Jack attempts to squirm out from under his arms. “You went out on a solo Weevil hunt, _despite_ knowing that they’re particularly dangerous in mating season, and died _again._ There are better ways to sulk, you know.”

“I wasn’t sulking!” Jack protests, finally succeeding in separating himself from Ianto and putting his hands on his hips. Ianto raises a sceptical eyebrow. 

“Okay,” Jack relents, “maybe I was a little. And I am sorry, Ianto, about that too. I can’t… I can’t say I know _exactly_ how it feels, but if it is anything like dying, like they say, then I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy. Well, maybe one or two. Or three. Or - I’ll make a list and get back to you on that one.”

Jack grins as his words successfully thaw the ice in Ianto’s gaze, not that he’s ever been able to remain angry with Jack for long. Ianto isn’t sure if that’s a soulmate thing, or just a Jack thing, because by _god_ that man is charming. 

Speaking of soulmate things, Ianto can hear Owen’s steady tread making its way down the stairs to where he and Jack are standing, and he turns to see his other partner looking almost as weary as Jack. _He really needs a good night’s sleep_ , Ianto thinks as he walks towards Owen and wraps his arms around him. He’s not sure he can remember the last time Owen managed to get more than six hours of rest, what with the constant midnight wake-up calls and Jack spending a solid few nights of brooding in the Hub under the pretext of “monitoring the Rift”, before his mope culminated in the current Weevil incident. Ianto knows that he’s restless when Jack is gone, but maybe his slumber is even more disturbed than he thinks by Jack’s absence, because Owen normally sleeps like a log. 

“Earth to Ianto!” Owen’s voice, pitched up in a singsong manner, draws Ianto out of his reverie. Ianto pulls back far enough to kiss him, ignoring Owen’s faint grumbling when Ianto breaks away. He lets Owen go and rolls his eyes, but Ianto’s hand finds his partner’s and Owen interlaces their fingers. 

“Don’t think you’re off the hook just yet, Jack,” Ianto calls over his shoulder as he tows Owen in the direction of the cog door.

Jack smirks, and Owen seemingly can’t help the little exasperated sigh that he lets out. Jack’s gaze flicks over to Owen, and if Ianto didn’t know better, he’d say that Jack’s megawatt grin dims for a moment. It must have been his imagination, though, because in a flash Jack is dashing up the stairs after them, his smile never leaving his face. 

“Is that so?” he says when he reaches them, one eyebrow cocked alluringly. “And might there be something I can do to make it up to you?” 

“There might be,” Ianto replies coyly, and Owen tugs on Ianto’s hand impatiently, tired of waiting around while he and Jack flirt in front of Owen like lovesick puppies, as he’s put it more than once. Ianto shakes his head affectionately at Owen and Jack in turn before heading for the Tourist Office, and beyond that the relative peace and quiet of the flat, his partners in tow behind him. 

***

One word. One sweet utterance of thanks in that gorgeous Welsh baritone has brought him all this, Jack thinks to himself as he’s lying in bed later, draped over Ianto’s right side while Owen is curled against his left. They had briefly jostled for arm-resting space on Ianto’s middle before Ianto jokingly scolded them, kissing them both on the forehead before firmly pushing their heads down onto his shoulders. 

Owen has a habit of curling up when he’s asleep, Jack notices, as if it’s the only time he can allow himself to feel small, and safe, and protected. He can see those feelings in Owen’s gaze sometimes, too, when Ianto locks eyes with him across the Hub or the SUV, or when Ianto drags Gwen’s vacant chair over to Owen’s desk and gently presses up against Owen’s side, taking the latest piece of paperwork out of Owen’s unresisting hands and starting to fill it in for him. 

Jack wonders what Ianto sees in his own gaze when he looks at him, and whether Owen has picked up on that, too. No matter how much closer they’ve grown since Ianto’s first day at the Hub, when Ianto had gasped as soon as Owen opened his mouth, Jack still isn’t sure where he and Owen stand. Despite usually being the person holding the most cards in the room when it comes to knowledge of events past, present and future, Jack hasn’t cared to pay attention to many soulmate stories in his century and a half of life. Thus, he has no idea exactly how unusual his… _situation_ with Ianto and Owen is. 

Jack can tell that Owen resents it, resents being lumbered with Jack bloody Harkness at all hours of the night, as he’d put it. He knows that it hurts Ianto to see and feel the palpable tension that makes itself known only too often between himself and Owen. But although he can be headstrong and prickly, Jack chose Owen for a reason, chose everyone on the team for a reason. Without a doubt, he cares about them all deeply, Owen very much included, and they’re stronger together. Much like he, Ianto and Owen are, he supposes. 

Not for the first time, Jack wonders which emotions would be visible in his eyes when he looks at Owen. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The team deal with the aftermath of their trip to the Brecon Beacons.
> 
> (CW for mentions of the events of the episode 'Countrycide', for those who aren't a fan! You can safely skip to the next chapter and you won't miss any major plot points.)

“Okay, that was… that was too fucking close.”

Jack couldn’t agree with Owen more. The two of them are sat on either side of Ianto, Jack’s arm over his shoulders and Owen’s around his waist. Jack had assumed that Ianto would need some physical space after… everything. But once Gwen had disappeared into an ambulance, Ianto had grabbed both of his partners’ hands and pulled them down beside him where he was perched on the bumper of the SUV, the boot open behind him. 

Jack rubs his thumb over the bump of Ianto’s shoulder, his mind’s eye assaulted by images of Ianto in that butcher’s shop of a house, battered and bloodied with his hands bound behind his back. It’s almost too much to bear, the thought that Jack was so close to losing him, to losing them all. If he had crashed through those doors just a few seconds later… 

He wishes he hadn’t suggested that Ianto leave him and Owen, though he had thought at the time that Ianto would be safer if he could just get back to the SUV. He wishes that they’d never come to this godforsaken village in the first place. Jack is fairly sure that his breathing is speeding up, but isn’t able to slow it down. All the blame and the terrible possibilities are swirling about in his head, and it’s all a little overwhelming. 

“Jack.” Jack almost jumps when Owen quietly addresses him, and meets his gaze over the top of Ianto’s head. “God, I can practically  _ hear  _ you overthinking. He’s fine, we’re all fine, you did fine. It’s Torchwood. Shit happens.” 

“I- yeah,” Jack replies weakly, leaning into Ianto and resting his head on his partner’s.

“Okay,” Owen says, though the expression on his face seems to suggest that it’s anything but. Jack understands - everything is far from okay, and beyond that Owen is in unfamiliar territory, having to be the one reassuring Jack for a change. Owen takes hold of Ianto’s hand where it rests in his lap, and Ianto offers him a faint smile from where he’s leaning heavily on Jack. 

Jack notices then that Tosh is standing a little way away, clutching the blanket draped over her shoulders and watching the three of them with more than a little sadness in her eyes. Jack catches her eye and smiles at her, beckoning her over with his free hand. He can only imagine how she must be feeling at the moment, having been locked up with Ianto and trying and failing to flee into the woods. Seeing Owen there with his soulmate is the absolute icing on the cake of a shitty, shitty day, of that Jack is sure. 

“How’re you holding up, Tosh?” Jack holds out his hand and Tosh takes it, before wedging herself in on Jack’s other side, in what little space is left on the bumper. She doesn’t answer Jack’s question, though. The four of them just sit in silence for a while, all linked by way of hand or arm, and stare out at the peaceful Welsh countryside that could easily hold many more untold horrors, human or otherwise. 

“Let’s go home,” Jack finally says, and three fifths of Torchwood Three wearily nod their assent. 

***

“Thank god it’s over.”

Jack has stolen the words right out of Ianto’s mouth. Ianto steps through the door to the flat and suddenly feels boneless as he inhales the familiar scent of their laundry detergent, and last night’s takeaway, and  _ home.  _

“Ianto?” Jack quickly adjusts his balance to take some of Ianto’s weight as Ianto simply sags onto his partner. The events of the day have intermingled with the sheer relief that he feels at being home safe, at all of them being home safe, and he suddenly feels like the Earth’s gravitational pull has been turned up to eleven.

“I think things are just sinking in,” Owen says perceptively as he squeezes past them, stopping to pat Ianto’s shoulder and letting his hand linger there for a moment.

“I think you’re right,” Jack replies, and gently walks Ianto further into the flat. “Owen, could you…” 

Jack gestures vaguely and Owen nods, crouching down and unlacing Ianto’s walking boots. Ianto automatically toes them off as Jack gently tugs Ianto’s jacket from his shoulders, handing it to Owen. 

“What am I, the butler?” Owen scoffs, but rolls his eyes goodnaturedly and takes the jacket; Ianto catches sight of his fingers briefly brushing Jack’s. Jack starts but hides it well, Ianto thinks absently. Not well enough for Ianto to fail to notice, of course - firstly, he could physically feel Jack’s shoulder jump where he’s leaning on it, and secondly, Ianto knows Jack too well at this point, and can spot a micro-expression on his face at forty paces. He’s too exhausted to think on the matter any further, though, and files it away for future reference. 

“Thank you, Harper,” Jack jokes, and Owen eyes him grumpily. 

“Alright, you’ve had your fun, Jack, ha bloody ha. Now, are you both gonna let me have the first shower, or am I gonna have to fight you for it?” Owen smirks, and the corner of Ianto’s mouth turns up too. 

“Go ahead, Owen. You clearly need it,” Ianto manages, laughing a little when Owen gasps in mock-outrage. 

“Just for that, I’ll try my hardest to use up all the hot water,” Owen announces, ambling off in the direction of the bathroom. 

“Pleasant man,” Ianto remarks mildly as the bathroom door swings shut, and Jack laughs, muffling the sound in Ianto’s shoulder. Ianto makes the executive decision to steer them both in the direction of the sofa, having regained some reserves of strength along with the return of his sense of humour.

When they’re within arm’s reach of the couch Jack flops gracelessly onto it, pulling Ianto down with him and making him giggle and huff out a pained sound in the same breath. Jack thankfully rearranges them into a more comfortable position, with Ianto no longer in danger of putting a knee or elbow somewhere fragile, and he no longer has to put as much weight on his poor bruised ribs. Jack kicks off his shoes, the greatcoat a lost cause beneath both of their bodies. Ianto is secretly glad that Jack has kept it on, resting his face against the well-worn fabric where it’s draped over Jack’s broad chest. He inhales deeply, his nose filling with the scent of damp wool and Jack.

The two remain like that for a while, neither saying anything. Jack runs his fingers through the hair at the nape of Ianto’s neck, playing with the tiny strands, and Ianto sighs contentedly, settling in more comfortably against Jack and moulding himself impossibly closer to the contours of Jack’s body.

“Hey now, sleepyhead, don’t pass out on me just yet,” Jack says in an almost uncharacteristically soft voice. 

“I’m not,” Ianto mumbles, and lifts his head to catch Jack’s eye. “My spine will remember it if we fall asleep like this, unlike yours.”

“You make a compelling point,” Jack says, and leans in to brush his lips over Ianto’s. Jack then presses a series of tiny kisses to the corner of Ianto’s mouth, then his cheek, then his cheekbone, before rubbing his nose against Ianto’s temple. 

Ianto’s heart stutters in his chest at the tenderness of the gesture, and he buries his face in the juncture of Jack’s neck and shoulder, blushing slightly. He can just about feel the muscles in Jack’s face move as he smiles at Ianto’s reaction. 

“Alright lovebirds, the shower’s free,” Owen calls as he walks into the room, a towel wrapped around his waist and water droplets glistening on his dark hair. Ianto makes to move but can’t quite dredge up the energy, limply flopping back on to Jack. 

“ _ Oweeen, _ ” Ianto wheedles, and Owen rolls his eyes before striding over to the sofa and helping Jack to carefully haul Ianto to his feet. “Thank you,” Ianto says, pressing a kiss to Owen’s mouth before walking in what he is sure must be a very ungainly manner towards the bathroom. He turns to see Jack and Owen look at each other, then at Ianto, then simultaneously take a step towards the bathroom. 

Ianto slouches against the doorframe. “Okay, so I might need a  _ little  _ help,” Ianto admits, and Jack lets out an incredulous laugh. Owen shakes his head, and together Ianto’s partners help him into the bathroom. 

*** 

“... Admittedly those are worse than I thought.”

Owen sucks in a breath as Ianto states the blatantly obvious, staring into the mirror at the bruises starting to bloom all over his bare chest and back. 

“Too bloody right,” Owen replies a little unsteadily, cursing himself for not giving Ianto a more thorough look-over back in the village. Ianto had pushed him away when he tried, saying that he just wanted to get home, but Owen should have insisted, should have been a doctor rather than an overwhelmingly relieved partner-

Jack’s voice draws Owen out of his rapidly spiralling thoughts. “Okay, into the shower,” Jack says, attempting to let go of Ianto and rapidly realising that this is very much not going to happen. “Owen, could you just…?” 

Owen takes Ianto’s weight as Jack begins to strip, and he huffs out an exasperated sigh as the acres of unblemished tanned skin on Jack’s back appear from beneath his shirt. Typical Jack, getting his kit off as soon as he reasonably can. 

“Thanks,” Jack says, as he takes Ianto’s weight again and the two step into the flat’s generously proportioned shower. Owen starts to head off into the bedroom, but Ianto’s arm snakes out from behind the shower curtain and grabs his bicep, right over the words marked indelibly on Owen’s skin.

“Stay,” Ianto says, and Owen thinks of Ianto saying, “Jones, Ianto Jones,” in the Hub all those years ago, three words forever etched on to Owen like a promise. 

“Okay,” Owen says, and leans against the wall near the shower, just far enough away that he won’t be splashed by the spray from the shower head, but just near enough that Ianto can feel that Owen’s there, if he needs him. 

All thoughts of Jack and his strange ability to get under Owen’s skin are pushed aside for a moment, and he feels guilty for having stopped to think about the man that is unfortunately his other soulmate when Ianto is hurting so badly. He can hear Jack and Ianto whispering to each other but his ears skim over the words, his mind completely consumed with worry and guilt. 

He whiles away the entirety of Jack and Ianto’s shower like this, zoning in only when Jack asks him to pass the two remaining towels from the towel rack. Owen complies on autopilot, and Jack looks at him strangely as the two help Ianto on to the bath mat. He doesn’t say anything to Owen, though, and for that Owen is grateful. He’s not sure what would come out of his mouth right now, if Jack asked him if he was okay. 

Towels now wrapped securely around Jack and Ianto’s waists, the three make their way into the bedroom, and Ianto winces as he bends to slide his soft tartan pyjama bottoms out from under a pillow. Owen teases him constantly for his geriatric taste in sleepwear, but secretly he finds it endearing. Plus, they contribute to how stunning Ianto looks when he first gets up in the morning, his face sleep-wrinkled and his pyjamas hanging off his hips  _ just so.  _

Owen thinks about offering to help Ianto change, but before he can get the words out Jack has already moved in to try and take the pyjamas from Ianto. 

“I’m fine, Jack. I’m perfectly capable of  _ putting on some trousers _ , thank you,” Ianto gripes, and Owen winces. Yep, he should have guessed that Ianto would rebuff any offer of help, his stubborn desire for independence making an appearance now that he’s not in imminent danger of slipping and breaking something in the shower. 

“That’s me told,” Jack says, his tone fond but his eyes betraying the worry that Owen knows he’s trying to bury. Hang on, when did Owen start being able to read Jack that well? The thought makes his stomach churn, as if a flock of swallows are battering at his ribcage, trying to force their way out through his mouth. 

Owen attempts to distract himself by pulling on a loose pair of tracksuit bottoms and an old t-shirt that could belong to any of them; at this point it would be futile to attempt to separate out any clothes that aren’t obviously part of one of Ianto’s suits. Jack is rummaging through the chest of drawers for a clean pair of boxers, and Ianto has finally succeeded in pulling on his pyjamas. He smirks at Owen triumphantly and very gingerly slides into bed, wincing and letting out a strangled gasp as he finally gets himself lying horizontally. 

“Now, I don’t want to say that I told you so,” Owen goads, sliding in beside Ianto and trying and failing not to notice Jack pulling on boxers in his peripheral vision. 

“I wouldn’t if I were you,” Ianto warns him, turning to look at Owen with one eyebrow raised. “After all, I’m in charge of your daily supply of caffeine.”

“Not for a few days, you’re not,” Jack interrupts, pulling the covers back on the other side of the bed and clambering in. “You’ll be on bed rest to give those ribs a chance to heal, Ianto.”

Owen braces himself for a shouting match, but it seems that the events of the day have taken too much of a toll on Ianto, because he merely lets out a long-suffering sigh at Jack’s overprotective tendencies and pulls Jack and Owen closer to him, bruising be damned. At least Ianto will inevitably have a private moan about it to him later, Owen thinks vindictively. That’s something that Jack can’t muscle in on. 

Okay, realistically Owen knows that Jack’s not muscling in on anything. He’s aware that both he and Jack are of equal importance to Ianto - despite his fears to the contrary semi-regularly keeping him up at night - and that, like it or not, their apparently separate relationships with him are still very much intertwined, even more so than Ianto or Jack know. 

But Owen can’t exactly call himself a reasonable man, and right now he just wants to take a few cheap shots at Jack’s expense, all while ignoring the subtle yet profound ache in his chest when he thinks of Jack bloody Harkness.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The team are tasked with helping three people from the 1950s settle in 21st century Cardiff.

That neglected little nugget of pain and yearning in his chest when he thinks of Jack is exactly why Owen ends up spending so much time with Diane. 

Oh, he’s cleared it with Ianto, of course, who had seemed a little off but had nonetheless waved him on jovially. If he’s honest with himself, Owen knows that he should have taken Ianto off to one side, to talk it out again and gauge his actual feelings on the matter. He’d offered to move Diane into his unused flat and show her the ropes for a while, just to teach her how the appliances work and other basics of living in the twenty-first century, so he’ll be gone for a fairly extended period, he has to admit. 

He and Ianto have never really been apart for more than a few days since they moved in together along with Jack, spending the vast majority of their nights in what Owen is sure must be the largest bed in the entire city of Cardiff and its surrounding metropolitan area. And Owen feels bad about not being in that bed with Jack and Ianto right now, not just for Ianto’s sake, but indeed for his own. 

But equally, he has to do this for himself, has to be selfish just for a little while. Though it kills him to be away from Ianto, his head feels so much clearer without Jack around, with his smile and his flirting and his fucking _fifty-first-century pheromones_. He just needs a break from all the noise in his brain that being around Jack creates, the little stones that seem to be rolling around in the pit of his stomach when Jack smiles at him or brushes past him. Owen is sure that with just a little more time, and a little more distance, he might be able to… Oh, who is he kidding, he’s just putting off the inevitable, really. And yet, knowing this isn’t enough to stop him from behaving like this, cutting off his nose to spite his face while simultaneously pushing his soulmates away. 

Sitting across from Diane in a local restaurant, her leather flight jacket draped over the back of her chair and her sleeves rolled past her elbows, Owen considers his lot. He knows that Diane is interested, she’s made that plain. Unusually, she doesn’t have a soulmate mark at all, and she clearly isn’t angling for anything serious. And he knows what it must look like to her, with him being in an… _arrangement…_ with two people. But while she’s undeniably beautiful and charming, Owen spends all his time with her wishing to be elsewhere, craving Ianto… and yes, craving Jack too. 

“Owen?” Diane’s voice brings Owen back to himself and he smiles at her apologetically. His heart isn’t in it tonight, in part because he wasn’t expecting to feel quite so strongly about being away from _Jack_ as well as Ianto. The ache in his chest isn’t entirely for Ianto, Owen realises with a start, and he scowls immediately at the thought, pushing it down as far as it will go. Diane looks confused and a little hurt, and Owen attempts to rearrange his features into some semblance of a pleasant expression. He’s fairly sure that he must actually resemble someone sucking on a particularly bitter lemon, but it will have to do. 

_Just a few more days_ , Owen thinks to himself, _just a little while longer and he’ll be back at the flat anyway._ He may as well bury himself in what little remains of his sojourn with Diane, before he’s back to nigh-on-insufferable reality. 

***

Predictably, this is when everything goes to shit. 

Ianto is alone in bed, for the first time in a long time, when he’s awoken in the wee hours by his phone vibrating shrilly on the bedside table. He throws a hand out from under the duvet and fumbles for his mobile, flipping it open without checking who’s calling. 

“Hullo?” he mumbles, voice still thick with sleep. 

“Ianto.” Jack’s voice is tinny as it’s piped through the phone’s tiny speakers, but Ianto knows him well enough to hear every ounce of the strain that laces it. 

“Jack?” Ianto sits up groggily in bed, glancing at the clock on the bedside table and balking at the time. “Are you okay?”

“Not… really, no,” Jack grits out, and Ianto’s breathing speeds up. “I’m sorry for what’s about to… I’m sorry. I hate that I’m always hurting you.”

“What? What’s going on, Jack?” Ianto is already poised to leap out of bed and rush to Jack’s side, but then he feels a twinge of pain in his chest, and instantly he knows. 

“Sorry, Ianto,” Jack gasps out, and the line goes dead. Ianto grits his teeth as the familiar feeling of experiencing someone else’s death floods through his body, muscles spasming and twitching with the pain. He slumps back down onto the bed, curling around a pillow that somehow smells a little of Jack and a little of Owen. 

When the agony subsides, Ianto lies there panting, the duvet twisted around his waist. Not for the first time tonight, he wishes that Owen were here to hold him through the aftershocks, that Jack were here so that he wouldn’t have had to die in the first place. 

Ianto has finally started to drift off when he hears the front door open quietly. He rubs at his eyes and rolls out of bed, stepping into the hallway to find Jack kicking off his shoes and dropping a set of keys into the bowl by the door. 

“Jack? What’s going on? Where’s John?” Ianto steps further into the room and almost gags on the strong smell of exhaust fumes that must be billowing off Jack. 

“I…” Jack slides out of his coat and clutches it in his hands. He’s avoiding Ianto’s gaze, Ianto notes sharply, which is never a good sign. Ianto’s sleep-clogged brain takes longer than usual to process the various visual, auditory and olfactory stimuli before him, but when he puts two and two together he inhales sharply. 

“Oh god,” he says, and Jack hangs his head. “No, stop that, Jack,” Ianto instructs, and Jack looks up at him questioningly. 

“But-”

“ _Yes_ , I’m still angry with you, and _yes_ , it can wait until a better time,” Ianto informs him, striding over to him and taking the coat from him before kissing his forehead gently. “Shower now. We’ll hang the coat up in there too, in the hopes that the steam will loosen some of the smell.” God, he _really_ hopes that it will, because his eyes are watering from the odour, and at the thought it conjures up of Jack all alone in the car, phoning Ianto as the poisonous gas filled his lungs. 

“Okay,” Jack relents, letting Ianto take him by the hand and lead him to the bathroom. Once inside Jack strips quickly, turning the shower on as Ianto settles his coat on the hooks nailed to the back of the door. Ianto starts to strip too, stepping into the cubicle beside Jack just as the water has started to heat up. 

Grabbing for the shampoo that they keep in the shower caddy, Ianto deposits a generous quantity on his hand and taps Jack with the other. Jack bows his head and lets Ianto apply the shampoo, sighing contentedly when Ianto scrubs his nails across Jack’s scalp. 

“That should help with the smell,” Ianto says softly, directing Jack’s head back under the spray and watching the shampoo make its way down the planes of Jack’s chest and back in fragrant trails.

A sudden wave of emotion takes hold of Ianto at that moment, and he pulls Jack in, wrapping both arms around his partner’s waist. Jack loops his own arms around Ianto’s neck and presses his face into Ianto’s rapidly curling hair. 

“I didn’t want him to be alone,” Jack mumbles against Ianto’s temple, “like I was, the first time.” 

Ianto’s arms tighten on Jack’s waist, and despite the dampness he can feel tears welling up in his eyes again. 

“You’re not alone, Jack, not any more. I promise you, I won’t let you be, _we_ won’t let you be.” Ianto isn’t sure if that ‘ _we_ ’ refers to him and the team, or maybe to him and Owen, but Jack has relaxed minutely in his arms, and so Ianto sets this thought aside for now. 

“Thank you,” Jack murmurs, and Ianto smiles sadly, thinking of John losing everyone he loved, and of the day yet to come when Jack will lose Ianto, too. 

“It’s what I’m here for,” he replies, sniffing hard to dispel any lingering teardrops. “Now, since you smell a lot _less_ like you’ve lost a fight with a faulty catalytic converter, and a lot _more_ like someone Owen and I are willing to share soft furnishings with… Come to bed?”

***

Only a few hours later Ianto’s mobile rings again, but it’s Jack who leans over an unconscious Ianto and answers the call. 

“Owen?” Jack asks, having had the foresight to check the contact name before putting the phone to his ear. 

“Jack.” Owen clearly wasn’t expecting to hear Jack’s voice, but then, why would he be, Jack reasons. He called Ianto, his partner, for a reason. 

“Yep, sorry, the organ grinder can’t come to the phone right now as he’s fast asleep. You’ll just have to make do with the monkey.” Jack grins even though Owen can’t see him, but the smile freezes on his face when he hears Owen suck in a shaky breath. _Shit._

“Owen? What’s going on? What’s wrong?” Jack’s aware that his voice has risen in both pitch and volume, but Ianto sleeps on obliviously. 

“It’s Diane. She’s gone.” 

Jack’s blood runs cold. “ _Gone?_ What do you mean, _gone?”_

“Back through the Rift,” Owen says tremulously. “She noticed that the weather patterns were exactly the same as the day they all arrived and she… she flew off, right in front of me. I couldn’t stop her. I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault,” Jack says, already leaning over to gently shake Ianto awake. “Stay there - I don’t want you driving right now. We’ll be with you as soon as we can.” 

Jack flips the phone shut, leaning over to shake Ianto again. Ianto groans, opening his eyes and staring blearily up at Jack. 

“It’s Owen,” Jack informs him, and Ianto sits bolt upright in bed, suddenly significantly more awake than he had been moments ago. 

“What?” Ianto replies, Jack already sliding out of bed and stepping into his discarded slacks and braces. 

“Diane’s gone. Owen’s at the airfield,” Jack says urgently, “and we need to pick him up. He sounded strange on the phone. I don’t… I’m worried.” 

This seems to kick Ianto’s brain into gear, and then he’s a sudden flurry of activity, throwing on jeans and a jumper and grabbing Jack by the hand to drag him towards the door. 

“Yep, me too,” Ianto finally replies, as he toes on his shoes and Jack shrugs into his own shoes and coat. “If _you_ could pick up on it on the phone then that _really_ doesn’t bode well.”

“Hey!” Jack protests as he follows Ianto out the door, locking it behind him and jogging to catch up with his partner. “I’ll have you know that I’m _great_ at reading people. It’s _literally_ a major part of my job!” 

“I wasn’t implying that you couldn’t read _people_ well, just that you can’t read _Owen_ well,” Ianto counters as the two thunder down the stairs, slamming into the fire exit door so hard that it ricochets off the outside wall, its hinges groaning in protest. 

“Can _so_ read Owen well,” Jack replies petulantly as he thinks about tossing Ianto the keys to the SUV and swiftly vetoes the option. He’ll drive faster, and they’ll get to Owen quicker. 

Ianto, however, appears to have other ideas, snatching the keys from his hand and dashing over to where the SUV is parked. 

“You’ll drive faster but not as smoothly. I’ll get us there quicker overall, and I won’t break any laws while doing so,” Ianto argues, and Jack starts to call him on his faulty logic as he slides into the passenger seat, but instead finds himself clinging to the grab handle above him as Ianto tears away from the pavement. 

“O- _kay,_ you might be right,” Jack amends, as he struggles to buckle his seatbelt while Ianto slams into a hairpin turn. Perhaps he’s been underestimating Ianto all this time - Jack is fairly sure that his partner is driving faster than even Jack himself would dare to on these particularly meandering roads. Ianto doesn’t reply, concentrating on the tarmac ahead of him. 

Jack sits back in his seat, catching Ianto’s gaze in the rear-view mirror for a moment and smirking. “You’re hot when you drive like this,” he says in an almost conversational tone, but Ianto knows better and rolls his eyes. 

“I’m not sure that this is really the time, Jack,” he reproaches, but he meets Jack’s gaze again and raises an eyebrow. “Really?”

Jack laughs a little hysterically, relieved that he and Ianto are at least in this together. “Yes, really,” he assures Ianto, “and keep those wandering eyes on the road, Jones.”

Thanks to Ianto’s relentless driving, they pull up to the airfield before too long, and Jack surprises not only Ianto but also himself when he’s the first one to leap out the car, Ianto still in the process of killing the engine and unbuckling his seatbelt. Jack spots Owen, a tiny dot where he’s clearly sat with his knees hugged to his chest, and runs across the tarmac at full pelt, greatcoat flapping behind him in the wind. Under normal circumstances, he’d be thinking about the magnificent shape that he knows he cuts in the coat at times like these, but he’s strangely focused, his mind devoid of its usual running commentary. 

“Owen!” he calls when he’s within hearing range, and at the sound of his voice Owen looks up, scrambling to his feet. 

When Jack skids to a halt in front of Owen, he surprises himself for the second time by pulling the man into a crushing embrace, one hand wrapped around his shoulders and the other low on his waist. Owen stands stock still for a moment, before bringing his hands up and tentatively winding them around Jack, his hands resting on the very bottom of Jack’s shoulder blades. 

_Owen’s hands are resting where his mark would be,_ Jack thinks to himself, _if Jack were Ianto._ This realisation somehow draws his attention to the unusually intimate position he’s currently in and he quickly releases Owen, swallowing down the strange queasy feeling that has been fluttering in his throat and stomach since Owen called. 

“Sorry about the exhaust smell,” Jack tries to joke, and Owen gives him a strange look before he suddenly has an armful of worried Ianto. Owen meets Jack’s eyes over Ianto’s shoulder and they stare at each other for a moment, before Owen pointedly buries his face in Ianto’s shoulder and Jack looks away. 

“I’m so glad you’re okay,” Ianto is murmuring into Owen’s hair, and Jack doesn’t know what to do with himself. His hands itch to pull the two of them in, but yet again he tamps down the sensation and shoves his hands into his pockets, his fingers lightly gripping the fabric where no one else can see. 

Eventually Ianto pulls away, kissing Owen gently before turning to Jack. “We need to get home, but someone needs to drive Owen’s car back, too,” he says hesitantly, and Jack smiles gently but resignedly at him. 

“I’ll do it,” he replies, and Ianto shoots him a grateful look. Ianto fumbles for the keys in Owen’s pocket and tosses them over to Jack, who catches them effortlessly in midair. He briefly considers driving back to Owen’s old flat and packing everything up again, to get a head start on the inevitable clean-up that will be required, but decides against it. He’s already died today, and frankly, tidying can wait - he’d rather be in bed with Ianto, and- yeah, with Ianto. 

Ianto starts to walk Owen over to the SUV and Jack trails behind them, his stomach churning unpleasantly. If only he could just work out _why._


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Weevils begin disappearing from the streets of Cardiff, and Owen makes a dangerous new friend.

After Diane’s departure, Owen withdraws. He would hardly describe himself as overly tactile under normal circumstances, but he increasingly avoids Ianto’s little touches and caresses, and especially Jack’s pats on the shoulder or elbow. He spends more and more time dissecting alien corpses defrosted from the morgue and running a battery of near-pointless tests, staying late to plough through the piles of paperwork on his desk that are months old at least. He creeps into the flat long after Ianto has gone to bed, sometimes running into Jack reading or pacing in the living room, and sometimes catching his eye guiltily over Ianto’s bare shoulder as he slides into bed.

Owen is sure that from an outside perspective, it must seem like he simply doesn’t care. Far from it. Owen cares so, _so_ deeply, and this is exactly his problem.

He thinks that maybe Tosh can see this, can see that he’s hurting even if she can’t understand why. He overhears her talking to Gwen a few days after Diane leaves, Gwen’s tone reassuring and Tosh’s resigned.

“But your soulmate is out there somewhere, it’s just not the right time yet,” Gwen is saying, her hand placed soothingly on Tosh’s knee where she’s wheeled herself over to Tosh’s desk. 

“That’s easy for you to say,” Tosh points out glumly, shooting a sad little glance at Owen where he’s sipping at his coffee, his feet propped up on his desk. “You’ve got Rhys.”

“I know, sweetheart,” Gwen says, and comes out with some prattle about the universe working in mysterious ways, before wandering off to Jack’s office with a hefty file under her arm.

“She is right, you know,” Owen says quietly, and Tosh glances up from her keyboard to smile at him briefly. “I mean it, Tosh. If the universe can find a git like me a soulmate then it’ll have no trouble with you.” _Or rather, two soulmates,_ Owen thinks to himself, and laughs humourlessly. Tosh giggles softly, but then gives him a meaningful look, and yeah, Owen is pretty sure that Tosh gets how he’s feeling somehow. 

When Tosh turns back to her work after a quiet “thank you, Owen”, Owen spots Ianto and Jack lurking in the shadows. It’s clear that they’ve overheard the whole exchange, and they whisper to each other conspiratorially, shooting him glances that are fond (Ianto) and just shy of it (Jack) at intervals. Owen rolls his eyes.

“Yes alright, thanks for that, Tweedledum and Tweedledee,” he calls, and Jack and Ianto separate instantly, Ianto coming over to rest his hand on Owen’s shoulder before Owen can move away and Jack leaning his hip against the other end of Owen’s desk, watching the two of them. Owen feels a sudden burning rush of contentment at this, at the three of them like this, but the feeling is gone almost as soon as it arrives, replaced with anger at the two cooing over Owen like he’s a little lost lamb, and a hollowness that no amount of jokes and smiles with Ianto can currently seem to fill.

Ultimately, anger seems to be the only available medium for the complex tangle of emotions that have taken hold in Owen’s chest. Owen is irritable with Ianto and the others and positively sullen with Jack, despite wanting nothing more than to wail into Ianto’s shoulder about the whole bloody mess. When the team respond less than kindly to Owen’s dark moods, it winds him up all the more.

So when the Weevil kidnapping cases begin and Owen meets Mark Lynch, an equally pent-up twentysomething raging against the world and his lot, Owen is glad to see that the universe might have finally found someone for him to hang out with that’s even more fucked up than Owen himself is. 

Owen considers this fact as he sits at Mark’s kitchen table, nursing a beer and several new bruises, after the most exhilarating bar fight that Owen’s taken part in for quite some time. Mark had asked him what his outlet was for all his anger, and finally Owen had felt seen. Jack and Ianto always seem to be able to process their emotions internally, to make sense of the chaos in their own heads and to come out the other side as calmer and more content people, and Owen wishes more than anything that he could do that too, that he could just settle into a life with them rather than ranting and raving at a world that cannot or will not heal what ails him. But he just isn’t built like that, Owen is fairly sure. He’s not built to be content, not built to be _happy,_ he thinks to himself bitterly, and he’s ruining Jack and Ianto’s shot at being happy by trying for something he can never have.

Maybe Mark is right about the fate of the angriest members of humanity, Owen thinks. Maybe a caged animal is all he is, all he’ll ever become. Somehow it’s this thought, that he’s no better than the burdensome permanent residents in the Hub’s cells that Ianto has to feed every day, that persuades him into a cage with a Weevil.

***

Meanwhile, the arrival of the evening finds Jack and Ianto relaxing on the sofa in the Hub, feet up on the coffee table despite Ianto’s earlier protestations. Jack can hear Tosh and Gwen pottering about somewhere, but his attention is very much fixed on his partner. 

“Owen was so sweet with Tosh earlier,” Jack remarks out of the blue, and Ianto turns to look at him quizzically.

“He was,” Ianto agrees. “Still on your mind?”

“Yeah,” Jack says after a beat. “It’s just… it reminds me of when I first met him in that hospital, of how much he obviously cared for Katie even though she wasn’t… well, _you_.”

Ianto nods and Jack shifts to rest his head on Ianto’s shoulder, his nose pressed a couple of centimetres above his words, inked just under Ianto’s left collarbone. “I have long suspected that Owen cares far more about most people than he lets on,” Ianto remarks, and Jack hums in agreement. 

“I think you may be right there, Ianto,” Jack replies, and he’s relieved to hear his own voice come out steady and even despite the churning feeling in his stomach. It seems impossible that Owen might care for _Jack,_ the man he still believes is responsible for his late fiancée’s death, more than outward appearances would suggest, and yet Jack can’t help feverishly clinging to this thought. 

Ianto sucks in an anxious breath. “I’m worried about him,” he says after a pause. “He’s been so distant lately. I know that what happened with Diane shook him up, but, well… I didn’t think he’d care this much about it, is all.”

“Ianto,” Jack says carefully, “are you suggesting-”

“No! God no,” Ianto interjects hurriedly. “Of course not! It’s just that you know what Owen’s like with hiding things, and the fact that for all intents and purposes, he seems to have coped fine with us being apart? Call it soulmate instincts, but… it just doesn’t bode well,” he adds feebly when Jack’s face betrays his confusion. 

“Jesus,” Jack says hollowly, “I should really have picked up on that. After everything with John, I just-”

“Jack,” Ianto interrupts, turning Jack to face him with his finger and thumb on his partner’s chin. “It’s fine. I know you feel protective over everyone, but you’re only human.”

“Well, mostly,” Jack amends with a half-smile, and Ianto raises an eyebrow.

“You’re telling me about this at another time,” Ianto says firmly, pointing a finger at Jack and making him laugh at Ianto’s stern yet playful expression. 

“You can count on it,” Jack says, his tone bordering on flirty, before an alert comes through on his wrist strap, his face immediately becoming serious. 

“Another sighting?” Ianto asks, and Jack nods. 

“Must be one of ours - it’s tagged. This might be our chance,” he replies, and to the cavernous main space of the Hub at large: “Tosh - with us! Gwen - stay on comms.”

Tosh emerges from the armoury armed to the teeth with Weevil spray and Ianto stands up to fetch Jack’s coat, his face grim.

“Let’s do this,” Jack says, and the three make their way to the SUV. 

Once they’re on the road, Tosh pulls up the locator programme on her PDA, directing Jack through the narrow streets of Cardiff. Unluckily, though they arrive just in time to see the unmarked white van snatch the Weevil from the street, the GPS ultimately leads them to a fenced-off and foul-smelling alleyway. Caught in the weave of the chain link fence is a scrap of fabric, and as the team move closer they can see that the electronic Weevil tag is attached to it. The trio stare at it in disbelief.

“So what have we got now?” Ianto asks. 

“Nothing.” Jack is beyond exasperated. “We have no clue where they are or what they’re doing.”

Jack turns to stalk back to the SUV and sees Ianto roll his eyes, but Jack can hear his partner’s footsteps hurrying after him, meaning he probably won’t need to make a grovelling apology later on for his theatrics. Not that he ever does, really - Ianto almost always forgives him instantly for his more minor shortcomings. He supposes that it’s part and parcel of the soulmate experience - you can’t stay angry with half of your very _being_ , after all, and Jack is a particularly charming other half. 

As luck would have it, they haven’t been on the road for long before Gwen’s voice comes crackling into Jack’s earpiece, informing the rest of the team of a suspected location for the kidnapped Weevils. With a quick stop for Gwen on the way, the SUV squeals to a halt outside a dilapidated warehouse and they all jump out, guns at the ready. 

Pushing their way through the entrance, they make their way through a maze of corridors with Jack in the lead, shoving past the few lurkers that they come across in the corridors. They can hear the dull roar of what must be hundreds of voices shouting and hollering from behind a set of ornately carved double doors. A very sick feeling takes root in Jack’s stomach. Nothing good is going to come of this. 

Jack bursts through the doors with the others hot on his heels, and stops short as soon as he sees the scene before him. Owen stands in a fighting cage with his back to Jack and the others. Jack knows it’s him because he recognises the dark red shirt that Owen had picked out earlier that day, which Jack knows from experience is his “I’m going out tonight and want to be left alone” shirt. Owen is currently facing down a Weevil standing at the other end of the cage, its teeth bared and bloodied. Owen intends to fight a Weevil. 

These thoughts race through Jack’s mind in a matter of seconds, his brain working on overdrive. Instinct takes over and he fires two shots from his Webley up into the air almost before his brain can register the movement. 

Wrong move. The Weevil startles at the sound and launches itself at Owen, throwing him to the ground like a rag doll and sinking its teeth into his neck. 

***

_SHIT. Shitshitshit._

Ianto is rooted to the spot near the doors, his eyes wide as saucers and his mouth open in horror. His brain is working on overdrive, but he cannot for the life of him produce a coherent thought right now. The room has erupted in chaos, with the crowd of men cheering and jeering in equal measure, Gwen screaming at someone to open the cage, and Jack frantically trying to get a clear shot at the Weevil currently mauling Owen.

Ianto isn’t entirely clear on what happens in the next few seconds - he’s actually fairly sure that everything whites out briefly - because he suddenly finds himself pushing Gwen out the way and helping Jack to heave Owen off the floor, the Weevil now cowering in the corner. Gwen rushes out ahead of the trio and Ianto loses sight of her, has long since lost sight of Tosh, but he can’t focus on them at present. His brain is an unintelligible mess of _FUCKshitOwenhelpohgodsomeonehelp,_ his heart pounding in his throat harder than it ever has before, and it’s all Ianto can do to stay upright and continue supporting Owen’s weight until they’re safely out of the cage. 

Ianto helps Jack lower Owen onto the stretcher and sinks down beside him, stripping off his jacket and pressing it to the juncture between Owen’s neck and shoulder as his partner groans in pain. Ianto looks up to see Jack’s face contorted in pure rage, a vein standing out on his temple. 

“You did this to him,” Jack spits at the man that Ianto now recognises from the photo on the estate agents’ website as Mark Lynch. 

“He did it to himself,” Mark gasps out, the look in his eyes somewhere between horror and a morbid kind of fascination. “He had no fear.”

Ianto shudders. He focuses on Owen again, realising belatedly that he should be applying even and firm pressure rather than watching the scene in front of them unfold. 

“Bloody hell,” Ianto swears as he notices the change in Owen’s pallor. He’s starting to look a little grey, most likely from blood loss but potentially from shock. “Owen, look at me. I need you to stay awake. Focus on my voice.”

“Yes, alright, Ianto,” Owen replies irritably, but there’s no real heat in his voice, and his eyes soften minutely when he meets Ianto’s gaze. Ianto is dimly aware that something is happening in the cage but his attention is firmly on Owen, his focus broken only when Jack comes over to help him carry the stretcher out to the SUV. 

Together the team somehow wrangle Owen to A&E, and one flash of Jack’s Torchwood ID has Owen whisked away to be seen instantly. Jack and Ianto immediately follow the wheeled stretcher through the wide hallways, Gwen and Tosh having split off to find a coffee machine. Owen is eventually guided into a private room and swarmed by multiple medical professionals, leaving Jack and Ianto to pace nervously outside. 

“Owen must be hating this right now - he’s the only doctor in the room not allowed to tend to the patient,” Jack quips, and Ianto whips his head up to admonish Jack for his poor timing. He’s somehow surprised to find that Jack looks as worried as him, though, his lips pressed together into a fine line and a muscle in his jaw working frantically, and the words die on his tongue. Jack is clearly clinging to his composure through humour, and by the tips of his fingers at that, and Ianto can hardly begrudge him it. His own typical customer-facing mask is firmly in place, despite the many cracks in the façade that he knows must be present; right now, it’s all Ianto’s got to keep himself from collapsing to the floor in sheer panic. 

Gwen and Tosh eventually show up with lukewarm cups of instant coffee and a bag of grapes for Owen, and Ianto drains his in a matter of seconds, grimacing in disgust. Jack and the others take more measured sips of their own coffees, watching as Ianto continues to pace back and forth in front of the door.

“Oh give it a rest, Ianto, I’m breaking out into a nervous sweat just looking at you,” Gwen begs, then shrinks back as Ianto practically glowers at her. She runs a soothing hand down his arm apologetically, and though Ianto has already forgiven her she adds, “sorry. Sorry. I can’t imagine what you must be-”

“It’s fine, Gwen. I’m sorry too.” Ianto runs a hand over his hair in a mixture of frustration and anxiety. At this exact moment the door to Owen’s hospital room swings open and a parade of doctors and nurses emerge, leaving just one of their colleagues inside the room. Ianto and Jack immediately push their way in and the consultant turns to them to brief them on Owen’s fortunately fairly stable condition.

Once the doctor has left them alone, Jack turns to send Gwen and Tosh home and Ianto turns to look at Owen. He’s fully aware of the cliché, but Owen really does look even smaller than usual, lying there in the hospital bed. Ianto takes a deep and rather shaky breath, his hands knotted together so tightly behind his back that his knuckles must be turning white. 

Jack’s hand suddenly appears in the small of Ianto’s back, and the man himself steps up next to Ianto. Ianto leans into Jack, and the two of them are still stood in the same position when Owen stirs a few minutes later.

Ianto is startled when Jack brings up his other hand to throw the bag of grapes from earlier on to the table placed near the end of Owen’s bed, though Owen barely jumps, turning his head slowly to stare at the grapes, and then at Jack and Ianto. Mottled purple bruising is already appearing around the gash under his left eye, and his chest is a mess of gauze and bandages. Ianto’s breathing still hasn’t slowed down.

“You shouldn't have,” Owen says, and Ianto quirks an eyebrow. “No, really you shouldn't. I hate grapes.”

Ianto smiles slightly in the knowledge that Jack absolutely knows this about Owen. The corner of Jack’s mouth is angled up, and he shoots Ianto a look that confirms his less-than-sincere intentions.

“Doctors reckon you can go home,” Jack says apropos of nothing, and Owen lets out a mirthless laugh in response. 

“Doctors. What do they know, eh? I didn't want saving.” 

At this, all of Ianto’s worry for Owen is instantly ablaze, fury taking the place of fear in his heart. 

“ _Didn’t want saving?_ Owen, what the _fuck?_ ” Ianto is beyond enraged, but Jack cuts in before he can give Owen a piece of his mind.

“You want us to apologise?” Jack’s voice is very cold all of a sudden, and Ianto would shiver if he weren’t burning up with anger and hurt.

“For a few seconds in that cage, I felt totally at peace. And then you blunder in,” Owen mutters, and Ianto feels Jack holding him back now, hasn’t noticed that he’s leaning forward clutching at the end of Owen’s bed now.

“Do you two always know best? Is that what you believe?” Owen has turned away from them again to say this, but his head whips around as Ianto begins to speak in a low voice.

“Owen Harper, I have never known you to be more selfish than you were the moment you set foot in that cage,” Ianto gets out from between gritted teeth. “What was this _really_ about? Was it Diane?”

This question seems to catch Owen off guard, and his mouth works silently for a moment before he answers. 

“I- yes, in part,” Owen replies evasively, but Ianto cuts him off before he can continue.

“You bloody _idiot,_ Owen, we were so _worried_ ,” Ianto half-gasps, and now Jack is holding him up more than holding him back, his own eyes mirroring at least some of what Ianto is feeling right now.

“I know,” Owen says, meeting Ianto’s gaze, “and I’m sorry. Really. But what’s done is done. I’m here now, aren’t I? I… I’ve got nothing more to say on the matter.”

Ianto sees Jack’s eyes harden in his peripheral vision. “I want you back in work tomorrow,” Jack states, his words clipped and emotionless, and Ianto stares at him, horrified.

“Jack, you _cannot_ be serious,” he exclaims, but Owen simply juts his chin up and meets Jack’s eyes, his gaze equally hard and flat.

“Fine,” Owen says, and Ianto huffs in exasperation. He shakes Jack’s arm off and straightens up abruptly, taking a couple of steps away from his partners.

“Oh no, _absolutely_ not. I’m _sick_ of you two constantly butting heads and making things difficult for each other, for all _three_ of us. You’re both my soulmates, and my partners, but right now I can’t stand to look at _either_ of you. I’m going home.”

“Ianto, wait. How am I going to get back?” Jack steps towards him and holds out a placating hand, but Ianto moves away from him again.

“Figure it out,” Ianto says angrily and turns on his heel, the door to the hospital room slamming behind him as he walks away.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Owen, Ianto and Gwen race to save Jack and Tosh from the Cardiff Blitz, 1941.

Jack’s back hurts. 

He’s not sure why he’s so acutely aware of how much his back hurts, standing in the middle of the 1941 Kiss the Boys Goodbye Dance with a very worried Toshiko clinging to his arm, but he is nonetheless. 

He’s been sleeping in the Hub ever since Ianto stormed out of the hospital, having stopped at the flat just long enough to pick up some clothes and leave. The bunker is cold and musty with disuse, the wardrobe barer than ever without Jack’s array of near-identical shirt-and-trouser combinations, all safely stashed at home. _Home_ , Jack thinks longingly, _home, and O- and_ Ianto. This must be why he can’t stop thinking about his aching back. 

_God,_ Jack misses Ianto right now. He would give anything to burst back into twenty-first-century Cardiff in a blaze of golden light, to sweep Ianto into his arms and apologise profusely for being such a prize cow of a partner. And, yeah, to apologise to Owen, too. Jack feels bad about how closed off he was in that hospital room, how coldly he treated Owen. He’s honestly unsure of what came over him; scrambling for an explanation, all he can come up with is the profound sense of dread he had felt when Owen had said that he _didn’t want saving._

Jack is always the one that storms in and saves the day. He’s the one that saves everyone, that saved his entire _team,_ putting them back together again and making them _his._ Not in a possessive way, not at all; they’re just his people _, his team,_ and to hear Owen of all people reject this, reject _him?_ Jack had immediately gone into survival mode, all vulnerability sealed off behind an impenetrable wall of ice. 

And now he’s in exactly the same situation, he realises. He’s stuck in 1941 with Tosh, with no way of getting her back to safety, no way to _save her. And with no way to get back to Ianto and the others, with no way to save_ himself, his treacherous mind reminds him. 

Jack pushes down his own tumultuous feelings in favour of putting on a brave face, smiling down reassuringly at Tosh and making the conscious decision not to shut her out. He can’t do that to her after all she’s been through, and it won’t help either of them to work out how they can get back. 

The appearance of real Captain Jack Harkness, the man whose name Jack stole a very, _very_ long time ago, is just another complication that Jack does not need. The idea of spending the evening with another person that he knows he will never be able to save fills him with dread, especially when he looks into Captain Harkness’ eyes and is suddenly able to make sense of the loneliness and longing that he sees there. In a way, he feels like something of a kindred spirit - he too is longing for someone that he can never have, in this place and this time. Perhaps it was fate that Jack took his name. 

Regardless, he’s glad that Tosh has been her usual quick-thinking self while he’s been struggling to process everything, having thwarted Bilis Manger’s plans and devised a way to get the missing Rift equations to the team back - or rather forward - in the twenty-first century. Brave, brilliant Toshiko, who this time is saving _him._

When he sees a bright white fissure of light bloom into being in the centre of the dance floor, Jack knows that it’s time to go. He can’t help lingering with Captain Harkness for just a moment, though - he just has to make him understand that he knows, that _someone_ knows, that he sees and values the Captain for who he is.

He finds the Captain swirling half a measure of whisky around in a glass on the edge of the dance floor, watching the dancers forlornly through his lashes. Jack carefully picks his way over and stops in front of the Captain, grabbing his shoulder and guiding him into one of the more shadowy recesses of the hall. 

There, Jack looks into Captain Harkness’ eyes, grasps the man’s free hand tightly and says, “I know. I _know_ , Jack, and it’s okay. _Really_ . One day, people like you, like _us,_ will be accepted, will be safe. But I have to go now. Back to that time, to the people that accept me, that love me. I have to go. It’s my duty.”

Captain Harkness stares at him in bewilderment, understanding dawning as Jack slowly steps away from him and starts to turn towards Tosh and the light. Jack catches sight of the Captain wiping away a tear in his peripheral vision, and he smiles sadly to himself.

Taking hold of Tosh’s arm, the two walk towards the fissure in time, and as they step into the light Jack realises that he’d said _people_ that love him, not _person._ Striding back into their own time, if it can be called that for Jack, the two laugh in relief and hug each other, Tosh squeezing Jack tightly around his middle. Jack hates that he’s essentially running on autopilot, his train of thought still lingering on the word _people._

Their reunion with Gwen is cut short, however, when Ianto’s frantic voice fizzles through their comms units, informing them between sobs that he’s shot Owen. 

***

Owen hates the bed in the flat. 

Don’t get him wrong, it’s a perfectly nice bed. The mattress is just soft enough to sink into, but just firm enough to offer proper support. Ianto buys only the highest quality of bed linen, and in general is able to prevent Jack from impulse-buying garishly decorated duvet covers at every available opportunity. 

No, the problem with the bed in the flat is that of late, Owen has been the only one occupying it. 

Oh, Jack had said it was to let Owen recover properly after the Weevil incident, and Ianto has claimed that he thought it best if he took the sofa to “give everyone a little space”, but Owen knows better. He’s let Ianto down, let Jack down, and now Jack can’t even stand the sight of him. Owen is sure it must be absolute torture for Jack to work alongside him every day, that this must explain why Jack has moved back into the Hub and stayed in his office as much as possible. 

_God,_ Owen is fucking _miserable_ without Jack in the flat, without both Jack and Ianto in the bed with him at night. There’s no denying it now, as much as Owen wishes he could, and despite his continued efforts to hide Jack’s soulmate mark with carefully selected haircuts. Owen doesn’t know why exactly he can’t just tell Jack and Ianto and get it out in the open. He supposes that he just doesn’t fancy facing the inevitable disbelief, disgust and rejection that would follow any confession of his, especially at the moment. 

Silly Owen, self-destructive Owen - who could want _him_ , if not for a soulmate mark keeping them together? Even Jack, with his history of free and indiscriminate loving across the galaxy, would no doubt run a mile. But what Owen wouldn’t give to at least earn Jack’s respect back, to return to the tentative truce that they had been working on before Owen had gone and fucked things up again. 

So when Ianto tells him that the newfangled Rift monitor programme has picked up a disturbance, and then they spot Jack and Tosh in a photo from 1941, it seems like Owen has finally been given a chance to prove himself, to open the Rift and save Jack and Tosh. Maybe if he can be the one to bring them back, then Jack will open back up to Owen again. Maybe if Owen can finally do something that he’s proud of, that Jack and Ianto are proud of, then he’ll find it within himself to stop pushing his soulmates away. 

“We have to open the Rift and get them back,” Owen says, but Ianto shakes his head forlornly. 

“Jack would never allow it. Opening the Rift could devastate the city. Besides, we can’t. Half the equation’s missing.”

“It can’t be,” Owen exclaims in disbelief. “It must be somewhere else, let me try.”

“It’s not there,” Ianto snaps, the tension between them inevitably bleeding through. Owen rolls his eyes but continues searching the mess of papers scattered across Tosh’s desk.

“It might be in her laptop. Which she never goes anywhere without,” Ianto continues before Owen can interrupt. Owen swears, kicking at the mess of wiring under the desk in frustration. 

Owen begins to pace, Ianto huffing out a breath of exasperation from where he’s sat in front of Tosh’s calculations. 

“Owen, could you just _sit down-”_ Ianto begins, before Gwen’s voice over the comms cuts him off, and together they work out that Bilis Manger the manager is the key. Despite this, Ianto orders Gwen to get out, which boils Owen’s blood. He knows that it’s not true, and a horribly spiteful thing to think, but it almost seems like Ianto doesn’t _care_ about Jack being gone, and about getting him and Tosh back. 

Taking matters into his own hands, Owen hurries over to the Rift machine and yanks some of the metal grating away from the floor, pulling out a handful of wires and ignoring Ianto’s protestations. 

“Bombs are falling. They're stuck in the middle of the Cardiff Blitz. It's our duty to get them out,” Owen says determinedly. _He needs to do this, needs Ianto to_ let _him do this,_ he thinks to himself. 

“Open the Rift now and the _whole world_ could suffer. We could all get sucked in! Who knows what will come out?” Ianto’s voice is raised now, but it’s what he says next in a low voice woven with hurt that finally stops Owen in his tracks. 

“This is about Diane, isn't it? When will you get over the _ridiculous_ hero complex she gave you and accept that she _chose_ to go? Aren’t we enough?” Ianto mutters, his voice barely above a whisper. Owen’s heart falls to his boots.

“Ianto, this isn’t… I mean, Diane wasn’t… we have to save them. This _isn’t_ about Diane,” Owen insists. _Really, this is about Jack, and about Owen himself,_ he adds silently. He hates how much he’s clearly hurting Ianto, but he has to try every avenue to get Jack and Tosh back. 

Plugging the final cable into the Rift manipulator, Owen wrenches the handle down, to no effect. 

“It isn’t working,” Owen says, frantically trying to figure out why before realising that a central piece is missing. He withdraws from the machine’s outer structure, making a beeline for his jacket. 

“Where are you going?” Ianto asks in bewilderment as Owen throws on the jacket. Owen throws an explanation over his shoulder as he runs through the cog door as it opens, focused on getting to the dance hall as quickly as possible. 

Owen’s instincts prove to be pin sharp, because despite spending precious minutes searching Bilis’ office he manages to find the missing piece of the manipulator. He barely manages to keep below the speed limit on the way back, very aware that it’s a tactic to distract himself from his guilt at deceiving Ianto (and Gwen too), and his rapidly waning confidence in this ridiculous plan. He just cannot comprehend the possibility of not being able to get the others back, refuses to contemplate it. Not when he still hasn’t told Jack… oh, fuck it… not when he hasn’t told Jack that he loves him. Owen has subconsciously known for a while of course, but only now, when he’s at his most fragile and fraught with worry, is he unable to prevent himself from consciously thinking the words. _He loves Jack._ God. _Fuck._

The alarm blaring as Owen runs back into the Hub pulls him from his thoughts. He places the cog in the machine while Ianto is distracted by Gwen reading off the remaining calculations over the comms, but the machine still refuses to work. 

“There must be something in the safe. The piece fits. We just need better instructions,” Owen says, now rifling through Jack’s drawers until he finds the passcode that he needs. Once he has successfully retrieved the blueprints for the Rift machine, Ianto tries and falls to snatch them from his grasp. 

Owen can hear the desperation in Ianto’s voice when he says brokenly, “ _please_ , listen to me.” Owen almost stops, the audible pain in his partner’s voice lancing through him like the blade of a knife, but he has to do this. 

“I’m tired of being in awe of the Rift, just because Jack says we have to be, because he thinks he knows best,” Owen seethes, all his old rage at Jack and at the situation briefly bubbling up to the surface. 

“He’s our leader,” Ianto says, “and my soulmate!” 

Ianto grabs hold of Owen as he tries to pass and the two tumble to the ground. Owen winces as he elbows Ianto hard in a bid to grab the plans, kneeing him in the chest as Ianto reaches for them again in vain.

“That Rift took my… my Captain. So if I die trying to beat it, then it will all be in the line of duty.” Owen stands and looks down at Ianto curled on the floor, his heart breaking, before striding over to the manipulator and getting to work. 

Owen hears Ianto groan behind him, but he’s completely focused on the blueprints. This, combined with the fact that Ianto is his bloody _soulmate_ , is why he’s startled to hear the telltale click of a pistol being cocked behind him. Owen stiffens, his gaze drifting over to where Ianto is standing at the top of the stairs. 

“Put the key down,” Ianto gets out from between gritted teeth, bringing his firing arm up to aim straight at Owen, “or I'll shoot.”

***

“You wouldn’t.” Owen’s voice is laced with irritation, and below that barely concealed fear. 

Ianto’s hand is shaking as he points the gun in Owen’s direction, and he brings his other hand up to steady his aim. He can’t quite believe that it’s come to this, but if Owen using Diane to play the hero - and avoid him and Jack - weren’t enough, the situation with Mark Lynch and the Weevil has evidently pushed him to breaking point. Ianto is just so _hurt,_ so _angry_ that Owen had been prepared to risk his life, and to throw away everything that they have, due to one mistake over which he had had no control. Ianto can’t believe- no, he doesn’t _want_ to believe that Owen has so little regard for himself, and for Ianto, the man he _loves_ , and who loves him. 

Because _god,_ Ianto loves Owen so much, loves both him and Jack so much that it hurts, sometimes. It’s not something that they say aloud often, and so Ianto knows that Owen will understand the sincerity in his tone when he says it. 

“Owen, I love you, but we’re all under orders to keep the Rift closed no matter what. I’ll do whatever I have to do to keep that promise to Jack.”

“Oh, right, and what about the promises you’ve made to _me?_ Does a soulmate bond mean _nothing_ to you when _orders_ say otherwise?” Owen’s voice cracks and Ianto almost caves, almost clicks the safety back on and swears to help Owen do whatever it takes to bring back Jack and Tosh. But he knows that Jack knows far more about the Rift than the rest of the team put together, and if he says that using the machine is bad news, let alone operating it without the necessary programming, then he’s almost certainly right. 

“Of course it means something to me, Owen! But right now Jack needs me, needs both of us to work together to find a _safe_ way to get him and Tosh home.”

Ianto sees the glower tug at Owen’s brow and frowns himself, knowing that his partner is about to lash out. 

“In your dreams, Ianto. You really think that Jack _needs_ us? We mean _nothing_ to him, in the grand scheme of things. Oh, sure, we- you’re his soulmate for _now._ But what happens when one of us dies? What happens when we grow old and wither away, and get replaced by someone younger, _newer_ ? We’re all just blips in time to the immortal man, Ianto, and he’ll outlive us, live _without_ us. Jack lives on the same scale as the universe, so how could you ever be more than just a part-time shag to him?”

The shot is fired before Ianto can even register the movement of his finger on the trigger, and he stares in horror as a spot of red blooms on the shoulder of Owen’s shirt. Owen is gasping in pain, clinging to the outer casing of the Rift manipulator, and Ianto is too late, far too late, because the central column of the machine is already moving up and down, smoke pouring off the tower. 

“You don’t know what you’ve done,” Ianto comments forlornly, before thundering down the stairs to Owen’s side. He’s not sure if he’s talking to Owen, or to himself. 

Something breaks in Ianto when he reaches for Owen’s injured shoulder and his partner flinches away. Ianto swears under his breath, turning away from Owen and thundering down the stairs to the invisible lift platform. He has to get out of the Hub, has to get away from his soulmate. His soulmate that he _shot_ point blank, when he disagreed with Jack’s orders. 

As the lift rises, Ianto looks down and sees Owen moving down into the autopsy bay as fast as he can manage, his button-down overshirt off and bundled up against his shoulder. Ianto feels the tears pooling in his eyes begin to fall; by the time he reaches the Plass he’s outright sobbing, the tears pouring down his cheeks in cascades.

Ianto taps the button on his earpiece, not caring whether Owen is listening in or not, and manages to tell the others that he’s shot Owen, his words dissolving into an incomprehensible wail.

“Ianto, listen to me.” Jack’s has assumed the commanding air of his Captain voice, but this only makes Ianto sob harder, doubly afraid of what the man who is both his partner and his boss will think. 

“I- I can’t- can’t believe I did it,” Ianto chokes out, “I know it was only his sh-shoulder, but…” Suddenly Jack’s voice is soothing in his ear, the sound of the SUV’s engine revving aggressively at odds with Jack’s now-dulcet tones. 

“Hey, hey, Ianto. Shhh, it’ll be alright. We’re on our way, won’t be long now. Where are you?” 

“O-on the lift platform,” Ianto murmurs, sinking to his knees in relief at the knowledge that Jack will be back soon, Jack will help him fix this. 

No longer crying, Ianto zones in and out while he waits for the rest of the team to arrive, his mind replaying images of the moment he shot Owen, the look of agony on Owen’s face as the bullet had pierced his shoulder and his nerve endings had registered the pain, the betrayal in Owen’s eyes when he’d looked at Ianto. Perhaps this is a small mercy, because losing his sense of time in this spiral of misery means that it feels like no time at all before he sees Jack’s boots step into his field of vision. 

Ianto looks up, weary from sobbing into his own chest and so broken that he’s beginning to feel the edges of numbness, but can’t quite meet Jack’s gaze. To his credit, Jack says nothing, instead leaning down to brush Ianto’s hair back where it’s sticking to the rapidly cooling sweat on his forehead. He places both hands under Ianto’s arms and hauls him up, letting Ianto collapse into his arms. The tears start falling again the minute he inhales Jack’s scent, the reality of what he’s done slamming back into him with the force of a hurricane. 

“Hey, Ianto, hey. It’s alright. The others have gone down to see Owen, he’ll be okay. We’ve patched him up after worse, as you and I well know. Can you tell me what happened?” Jack runs a soothing hand over the back of Ianto’s head, and Ianto takes a few deep breaths before answering.

“We were fighting about whether we should open the Rift,” Ianto says morosely. “Owen, he… he wanted to contravene your direct orders not to use the manipulator, and I- I threatened to shoot him. I didn’t actually intend to do it! But then he started saying things, _awful_ things about how we’re all just a _blip in time_ to you because you’ll live on without us. I just got so angry, I…”

Ianto sees Jack’s jaw working furiously before he speaks, and his grip tightens momentarily around Ianto’s waist where he’s still loosely holding Ianto up. 

“Okay. Okay. Owen is wrong, alright? I think we all need to sit down and talk about this properly. But right now, I need you to know that it’s _not_ like that with you, _or_ with the others. This, _us_? It’s for real.” Jack kisses Ianto on the forehead gently, before guiding him on to the paving slab and letting the invisible lift carry them back down into the Hub. 

Ianto is visibly shaking as the lift hits the base plate. He can hear someone, presumably Owen, moving things about in the autopsy bay, and from his and Jack’s vantage point he can just see Tosh at her workstation. Gwen is nowhere to be seen, but Ianto supposes that she might be in any number of places by now. He has no idea how long it’s been since the three of them got back to the bay. 

“Okay, _we’re_ going over here,” Jack says, steering Ianto up the stairs and towards the autopsy bay. Ianto clings to the railings when they get there, looking down at Owen extracting a bullet from _his own shoulder_ and wincing in pain. He feels a rush of guilt so intense that it takes his breath away, making him grip the railings until his knuckles turn white. 

“C’mon,” Jack says gently, and only then does Owen look up, making eye contact with Jack and avoiding Ianto’s gaze. 

“I knew we did the right thing, opening the Rift,” Owen says fervently as Jack and Ianto descend the stairs. “World didn’t end after all, did it? Good job you’re a crap shot.”

“I was _aiming_ for your shoulder,” Ianto replies in disbelief. “Owen, you can’t seriously believe-”

“Yeah? Well right now I don’t know _what_ to believe, Ianto.” Owen finally looks at Ianto, and it shatters Ianto to see the hurt in his soulmate’s eyes. 

“Believe me, I didn’t want to,” Ianto says quietly. He moves to stand near Owen, his back against the cold, smooth tiles of the autopsy bay. Jack stands off to one side, half-way down one of the flights of stairs. 

“I swear, Owen, I have no idea what came over me. Okay, maybe an inkling,” he adds, holding up his hands when Owen shoots him a look. “Everything’s just felt so… _off_ since Diane, and then when I saw you in that Weevil cage, when you got yourself _mauled_ half to _death_ rather than talking to us about whatever was wrong…!”

“Ianto,” Jack says sharply, and Ianto remembers himself. 

“Yes, right. Sorry. Not my pity party.” Owen snorts at this, glancing at Ianto from under his eyelashes. He’s removed the bullet and disinfected the area, now, and has somehow expertly threaded a needle to properly patch himself up during the conversation. He always has been good under pressure, Ianto supposes. 

“Ianto… It’s fine.” Owen’s voice is curt, his tone clearly an attempt to shut the discussion down before he has to be vulnerable with Jack and his soulmate, Ianto realises.

“No, Owen, it’s not. We ended up in a situation where I… had to side with Jack against you. That doesn’t sit right with me. I shouldn’t have let it get to that point, and I promise you that I’ll do everything I can to prevent it happening again.”

“You know that’s not a promise any of us could keep in this job, Ianto,” Owen says softly, “least of all you. Your loyalty to Jack - O Captain, my Captain indeed - comes before anything else, as it has to. And if I’d been in your situation… well, I’d probably have done the same thing.”

“I know,” Ianto says with a sigh. “I just… _god,_ Owen, you have _no_ idea how scary it was seeing that Weevil attack you, and then seeing you all beaten up in that hospital bed. You’re _never_ in hospital - you always insist on us patching you up here or at home, and then try and get me into bed with you long before you’ve recovered.” Owen smiles at this, and Jack even lets out a laugh. 

“Please, I’m sure Owen would be asking you to _kiss it better_ even sooner if it weren’t for the off-planet painkillers,” Jack jokes, finally coming down the stairs and standing at Owen’s other side. Owen has finished sewing up his shoulder, and is about to bite off the surgical thread when Jack gently pushes his chin out the way and snips the thread with a pair of scissors. Ianto watches the two of them with his eyes narrowed, but the expression dissolves into a small smile when Owen makes eye contact with Jack and inclines his head slightly. 

Jack’s answering grin is blinding, and he places a warm hand on Owen and Ianto’s shoulders. “Okay lovebirds, how’s about you two kiss and make up so we can get out of here?”

Ianto rolls his eyes, but gently takes Owen’s face in his hands and presses his lips to his partner’s. Owen responds almost immediately, and the two let the kiss linger and smoulder for a few moments before they break apart. Only then does Ianto realise that Jack’s hands have remained on their shoulders.

“Let’s go home,” Ianto says, and his partners nod in agreement.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time begins to break down as a result of the Rift being opened, and the team face off with Bilis Manger and a terrible prehistoric monster.

“The Rift is splintering because of you.”

Owen can’t believe what he’s hearing. “What?” How can _he_ be the cause of so much destruction, of what people are referring to as the End of Days?

“You opened the Rift without knowing what you were doing. You've caused the temporal cracks to widen. Time is seeping through.” Jack’s face is entirely devoid of emotion. No, actually, not entirely - Owen can see the barest hint of disappointment, maybe a smidge of resignation in the mix. 

“If it wasn't for me, you two would still be in the 1940s!” Owen practically snarls at Jack, his hackles immediately rising. The rest of the team say nothing, nervously looking between the two. Forget the knife - you could cut the tension in the room with a piece of bloody dental floss.

Owen grits his teeth and makes eye contact with Jack. “So, are we going to sit around crying into our lattes, or are we going to _do_ something about it?”

And do something they must. Agreeing to go to the hospital with Tosh as a priority, Owen grabs his earpiece and pushes his way out of the room.

“Did you have to pick on him in public like that?” Owen hears Gwen say as the door to the boardroom swings shut, but he misses Jack’s reply. Not that it would do any good, anyway - as if Jack would care about hurting Owen’s feelings. 

For a minute there, things had been good, after Owen and Ianto had talked things out in the autopsy bay at Jack’s insistence. They had all gone home and collapsed into bed, and Owen had awoken the next morning to find Jack watching him, the small smile on his face growing when he realised that Owen was awake. Owen had really thought that maybe Jack was finally warming up to him. It had only taken Ianto _shooting_ him for that to happen, but beggars couldn’t be choosers, after all.

Selfishly, Owen had held this little moment close, avoiding waking Ianto up after Jack had rolled out of bed and just lying there savouring the moment. He had known that it was weird, and pretty pathetic really, but he hadn’t been able to help himself. He was _so_ gone for Jack, fucking _hell._

But of _course_ Jack’s good mood has proven to be too good to be true, Owen thinks as he and Tosh wade their way through a sea of doctors and nurses in hazmat suits. As it turns out, there’s been an outbreak of the Black Death, which is enough to send Owen packing once they’ve ensured that things are under control, the hospital under full quarantine. 

When they return to the Hub it seems that Jack and Gwen have been out too, and the pair recount their run-in with Bilis Manger, and his warning about the dire consequences of refusing to open the Rift. Predictably, Jack is still declining to do so. 

“And there was one other thing,” Gwen adds. “Bilis showed me something… well, I think he showed me the future. I saw Rhys… die,” she whispers.

“What? That doesn’t make sense. I can’t understand how Bilis was able to show you that,” Tosh says disbelievingly. 

“It was so real, Tosh. I was in my flat. It smelt like my flat. It had all the sounds of my flat. I touched the blood. I can still feel it on my hands. I could feel him _dying_ , Tosh. It was every bit as awful as people say.” Gwen sucks in a shuddering breath and Tosh places a comforting arm around her shoulders. 

“I can only imagine, Gwen. None of us know what that’s like, except for Ianto of course.” Tosh winces sympathetically at Ianto and Owen rolls his eyes. Little do any of them know, eh. 

“That’s a pretty big assumption to make, Cooper,” Owen comments, and Gwen glares at him, clearly on edge. 

“No, listen, it’s different to other kinds of pain. You can’t know unless you’ve experienced it, that’s how I know that this… this _vision,_ or whatever it was, was real. You just know when you feel it, and you can’t have, Owen.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, Gwen,” Owen comments under his breath, and catches sight of Ianto looking up sharply. Ianto’s eyes narrow curiously when Owen meets his gaze, making Owen swallow nervously and look away. 

“Listen, Gwen,” Jack says soothingly, “it’s not gonna happen, I promise. Bilis just couldn’t know that. Why don’t you give Rhys a call, just to put your mind at rest?” 

Gwen nods and fishes out her mobile, while Jack turns to Owen and Tosh. 

“So, how was the hospital?”

“Laugh a bloody minute,” he comments dryly to the team. “They’ve got an outbreak of the Black Death. It’s under control now, and it’s treatable nowadays, thank _god_. But, you know, what happens when the next carrier comes through, Jack? Someone carrying smallpox or Ebola or something from the future we don't even know about yet? We need to be prepared. We're helpless! All we're doing here is putting sticking plasters on gaping wounds!” Owen is right in Jack’s face now, and Jack raises his hands placatingly.

“What do you suggest?” He asks Owen, the careful neutrality finally sending Owen off the deep end.

“I _suggest_ you _lead_ us, and you _tell_ us what the instructions are.”

“Owen,” Gwen cautions, sliding her mobile back into her pocket, but Owen looks at her with raised eyebrows and she falls silent.

“No, come on. You're all thinking it too.” He turns to Jack. “You're the big man here. You keep all the secrets. Well, now's the time to _tell_ us a few and tell us how the _hell_ we're gonna get _out_ of this!”

Jack turns his back on Owen and paces, stopping to point an accusing finger at him. “You want to know a secret? There is no solution. I can't fix this! Because this was _never_ meant to _happen_ . The first thing you learned when you joined Torchwood was ‘don't mess with the Rift’. But you disobeyed those orders, and now _everything_ that's happening is down to you.”

“I only disobeyed instructions to get you back!” Owen’s world feels like it’s crumbling around him, the buzz of safety he’s always felt around Jack even in their worst moments finally fizzling out. Jack’s eyes flash with anger and Owen feels so afraid, but he covers it up with animosity. “I was _trying_ to bring you back to us - to the team, I mean,” he finishes weakly.

“And now people are dying.”

“What, so I shouldn’t have bothered?” Owen exclaims, half-ironic and half-disbelieving. “Why the hell _should_ I follow your orders, anyway? You might hold some influence over the rest of this lot, and Ianto too, but I came here of my own free will. You don’t own me, Jack Harkness.”

“Get out,” Jack growls. Owen is sure that he can’t have heard right, but Jack repeats the order, shoving past him as if to prove the point. “Get out! I’m relieving you of your duty. You’re done here.”

“ _Bollocks_ to that,” Owen shouts. “Is that really _it_ ? The whole world is going to shit and you're going to _fire_ me?” _And cut Owen out of his and Ianto’s lives,_ Owen’s treacherous brain adds, already working out how much of his stuff he can get out of the flat and into his car before being intercepted by a bloody Roman centurion, or whatever the Rift decides to throw at him.

“If I can't rely on you, if I don't have your complete trust, you don't belong here.” At this, everything around Owen seems to shrink down to a pinprick, Jack’s words echoing in his head. Because that’s the kicker, really - Jack has ultimately never fully trusted Owen, not like he has Ianto. And why would he, when he clearly doesn’t love Owen back? 

“So now we know how it is. I guess this is goodbye.” Owen slides his gun out of the waistband of his jeans and places it on the table. “Good luck with the end of the world. I would say thanks for the memories, but I assume I’ll be Retconned sometime in the next twenty-four hours.”

Ianto looks like he’s about to say something, but Owen stops in front of him and kisses him softly before he can open his mouth. “Goodbye, Ianto,” Owen adds numbly, stepping towards the cog door. Once he’s in the corridor he leans against a concrete pillar heavily, the tears that had formed in his eyes as he kissed Ianto for the last time breaking away from his lashes. The sound of the lift doors opening shakes him out of the first stages of mourning for the life that he’s about to lose, for the loves that he will soon forget. _Bloody Torchwood,_ he thinks miserably as he steps into the unforgiving interior of the lift, swiping a hand across his face to dispel the tears. _Bloody Jack._

***

If asked, Ianto would probably categorise his stress levels as having rocketed up to eleven during the past few hours. Owen, his soulmate and partner, is gone, having disappeared to god knows where. Jack, his other soulmate and partner, is in full boss mode, acting tough even though Ianto knows that dismissing Owen is slowly eating away at him. Gwen is frantic, having gone home, tasered her _own_ soulmate and shut him in one of the Hub’s cells for his own protection, as she sees it. Tosh and Ianto himself are just trying to keep what remains of the team together. 

Ianto, Tosh and Jack are standing near the water tower together, Gwen a little off to the side, when the lights dim and a warning siren starts up. Ianto exhales rapidly, nerves bubbling up in his stomach. 

“What’s going on?” He asks tentatively, clutching at the safety chain strung along the side of the metal walkway. He wishes that Owen were here, so that he could grip his arm tightly instead of cold metal.

“We’ve got a security breach,” Tosh replies, which does nothing to settle Ianto’s nerves. 

“Alright, nobody panic,” Jack says firmly, but it’s too late. Ianto sees the realisation dawn in Gwen’s eyes, and she takes off in the direction of the cells, screaming for Rhys. 

A significant chunk of the next half-hour or so is largely a blank for Ianto, which is becoming an alarmingly common occurrence in his life when he’s put under immense stress, he realises. He hears Gwen’s agonised screams when Jack can finally get through on the comms to tell him and Tosh what has happened. Ianto fights back the urge to curl up in a corner and sob, to make himself smaller like Owen always does, and goes down to help Jack with Rhys’ body. 

Once they’re all upstairs, Rhys included, Ianto tries and fails to remain present in the conversation. He’s sick with worry that whatever has infiltrated the Hub will bypass Jack and his immortality to somehow find and hurt Owen. A smaller but no less vocal part of him is worried that Owen will simply choose not to return, successfully throwing away what he was unable to in the cage with that Weevil so little time ago. 

“I’ll have to tell his family,” Gwen says numbly as a tear rolls down her face, the reality of the situation setting in. 

“We’ll deal with it,” he replies distractedly, leaning heavily against the wall and looking anywhere but the autopsy table. 

“The way you dealt with that porter the first time I met you? No, you won't ‘deal with him’, Ianto,” Gwen mutters, still staring down at Rhys’ slack face.

“Gwen, I’m so sorry,” Tosh says from the other side of the autopsy room, ducking her head and looking up through her fringe. Gwen laughs hollowly, looking up at Tosh and then Ianto. 

“You never even met him. This is what happens here. We all end up alone. Not me. No way.” She looks at Jack and says, as imploringly as one shattered by grief can, “you bring him back.”

“No.” Jack turns away from Gwen and Ianto can now see the pain etched into his face, lines so deep that for a minute he looks every one of his hundred-odd years. Ianto wants to pull him into his arms and smooth out that expression, but his anger at Jack dismissing Owen holds him back.

“We’ve got to have something else,” Gwen pleads. “Th-there’s something wrong with time, so, er, w-we can go back to the moment, to the very moment…”

“Gwen,” Jack interrupts gently, but Gwen rounds on him, tears sparkling on her lashes in the harsh light of the autopsy bay. 

“There must be something you can do,” she says, her voice dangerously low, “otherwise what’s the _fucking point_ of you!”

Gwen runs at Jack and begins to pound her fists on his chest, screaming at him to bring Rhys back, and Ianto can’t watch any more, choosing instead to turn his eyes towards the plastic-covered entry to the bay. His mind has just returned to its earlier worries about Owen when, as if on cue, the man himself enters at a run, staring down at Rhys’ body in horror. 

“Oh, shit. What happened?” He dashes down the stairs past Ianto and Tosh and stops, as if unsure what to do or where to look. Ianto makes the decision for him and steps forward. 

“You came back,” he says, and Owen nods. Ianto reaches out and takes Owen’s hand in his, very aware of the situation and mindful of how he reacts to their unexpected reunion. 

“Yeah,” Owen replies, squeezing his hand, before pulling away and turning to Jack. “How many other people have got to suffer, Jack?” 

Jack studiously avoids Owen’s gaze, his eyeline somewhere around Rhys’ bloodstained shirt, at a guess. 

“I’m going to fix this. I’m opening the Rift,” Owen says determinedly. Jack’s head whips round in shock, his eyes wide, but Owen is already gone, pounding up the stairs towards the main area of the Hub. Ianto starts after him, some unknown determination coming over him. Owen is right - they need to end this, and opening the Rift seems like the only plausible way to do so. 

“Make sure you stop him,” Jack orders, and Ianto spins on his heel to stare at Jack in anger and disbelief, unexpected tears welling up in his eyes. 

“No,” Ianto growls, and watches as Jack’s own eyes widen in an unmistakable expression of deep betrayal. 

“We’re going to help him,” Tosh adds, and the two of them hurry off to where Owen is frantically typing away at the computer bank, Gwen hot on their heels. 

“Enter Emergency Protocol One,” Ianto instructs, but Gwen pushes Owen out the way and takes over, her hands visibly shaking as they fly over the keyboard.

“Get away from the computer, Gwen,” Jack says from behind them, even as Ianto tells Gwen the password to override the security surrounding the Rift programme. “This is a trap. All these cracks around the world, they're diversions. This is what Bilis wants!”

“What are you afraid of, Jack?” Ianto hears Owen say, but he finds himself too engrossed in watching Gwen break through each successive firewall and roadblock on the system to turn and look. 

What draws them all out of their single-minded pursuit is the sound of Jack cocking his gun, which is now pointed directly at Gwen. Perhaps Ianto of all people shouldn’t be shocked by members of the team drawing guns on each other, but given the unusual nature of the day’s events, he finds himself utterly taken aback. 

“I said _move,_ ” Jack gets out from between gritted teeth. “Final warning.”

“I’ve got to get Rhys back,” Gwen says almost sadly, slowly stepping towards Jack. “I’m sorry, Jack.” With this, Gwen punches Jack in the face and he goes down hard. Owen scrambles for the Webley and aims it at Jack. 

“We’re relieving you of your command, Captain,” Owen yells. Jack begins to stand up and Owen gestures for him to stay down, verbally reinforcing the order. “I'm sick of people doubting me,” he spits, lifting the gun higher. 

Jack disobeys him, however, and Ianto is starting forwards to try and defuse the situation when a shot rings out. Jack slumps to the floor, blood pouring out of the bullet hole between his eyes. Ianto immediately falls to the ground, the searing hot-cold pain of his soulmate’s death ripping through him like a wave of third-degree burns. He forces his eyes open and sees Owen doubled over, the sliver of his face that is visible contorted in apparent agony. Ianto is in too much pain to assess this properly, focusing instead on leaning as best he can into the comforting hand that Tosh has placed on his shoulder. 

Owen drops the gun to the ground with a clatter and Ianto struggles on to his hands and knees, crawling over to where Jack’s body lies. He’s aware that Jack will come back to life any second, but the sight of his partner’s motionless form, lifeless eyes frozen open, still makes him want to weep. 

“Owen,” Ianto gasps, looking up to meet his other partner’s gaze and scrabbling about for Jack’s hand, “what have you _done_?”

***

Coming back to life always hurts, somehow. 

Jack considers this as he gasps back into existence, nothingness replaced with a perplexing whirl of colour, shapes and sound. He reaches out blindly and latches on to what turns out to be Ianto’s leg, making Ianto yell out in shock. 

“What have you _done?”_ Jack gets out between shuddering breaths, and the rest of the team stare blankly at each other, as if the frenzied spell that they had been under just moments ago has finally been broken.

Bolt upon bolt of electricity shoots up the Rift machine and into the water tower above, and the whole Hub begins to shake dangerously. Jack is fairly sure that he can hear the hum of metal and glass about to buckle, and is thankful when Gwen and Ianto appear at his sides to help him up.

No sooner is Jack on his feet than all the glass panels in the walls of the boardroom, the armoury and the greenhouse blow out in a spectacular explosion of fragments and sparks. The team quickly make their way towards the emergency exit, stumbling up the stairs as fast as their feet can carry them.

Emerging into a back alley, Jack closes his eyes briefly against the onslaught of bright light against his sensitive, newly restored eyes. He clutches at Ianto and Gwen’s arms and the trio stride forwards, following Tosh and Owen as fast as they can down the street. Jack’s mind is all over the place, as it often is in the aftermath of a death, but he understands the severity of the situation when Gwen lets go of his arm and steps towards Bilis Manger, who is standing in the middle of the street. 

“From out of the darkness, he is come,” Bilis intones, his eyes wide. “Son of the Great Beast, cast out before time, chained in rock and imprisoned beneath the Rift!”

“What?” Gwen replies, and Jack can empathise with her monosyllabic reply at the present moment. Beside her, Owen and Tosh look utterly stunned into silence, and Jack can feel a tremor running through Ianto’s shoulders where he’s grasping them tightly. 

Bilis raises his head and stares at a point above and behind the team. “All hail Abaddon, the Great Devourer, come to feast on life! The whole world shall _die_ beneath his shadow.”

A huge roar startles Jack and Ianto into turning around, gazing up, up, _up_ at the colossal beast that towers above them. While he’d known that Bilis was manipulating the team to nefarious ends, he could never have imagined that this was what was hidden beneath the Rift, that _this_ was what Torchwood’s protocols and bureaucracy had been protecting the world from the whole time. 

The beast, Abaddon, roars once before turning and lumbering off. Jack and the team start to follow it, stopping abruptly when they turn the corner and see the carnage that it has left in its wake. 

Owen stoops to check for a pulse of one of the people lying on the street, but shakes his head when Jack meets his reluctant gaze. Jack immediately looks away from him, unable to dredge up the forgiveness needed to offer him a comforting word or a reassuring hand up from where he’s crouched. The moment feels just a little too raw still. 

Jack doesn’t know why exactly he can feel such a gaping chasm in his chest at the thought that _Owen_ of all people shot him; it doesn’t make logical sense. Something has been brewing between them for a while, despite the brief period of calm, and by rights Jack should just take this as the resolution of tension that has in reality spanned years at this point. But instead, Jack is _hurting_ , _emotionally_ speaking in addition to the lingering headache and muscle weakness. 

Aware that now is far from the appropriate time for this train of thought, Jack pushes it down and looks at Tosh, then Gwen, then Ianto, Owen tactically excluded from his sweeping gaze. 

“How do we stop it? Tell me what to do, Jack.” Ianto’s voice is desperate and panicked, and Jack slides his hands from Ianto’s shoulders to his cheeks, cradling them briefly. There’s only one option, really, and Jack hates that he knows this, hates that he’s considered and ruled out every other possible course of action in a matter of seconds. _God_ , this is going to destroy Ianto. 

“Just you. Get me to an open space.” The order is clipped but Ianto nods, thankfully not questioning Jack any further in front of the rest of the team. He shifts them around and Jack throws one last glance back at the team, unexpectedly catching sight of Owen seemingly on the verge of tears before he whips his head back around.

Together, Jack and Ianto half-run and half-stumble to the SUV, Jack’s legs almost giving out a couple of times. He knows that this plan is still not guaranteed to work by any means, but as a team they’re out of options, and as a species they’re in the eye of the biggest proverbial storm that humanity has ever seen. It will just have to do, or else he will have failed the planet that he’s sworn to protect, just like the Doctor did once before he left them. Admittedly he was leaving them in Torchwood’s apparently only barely capable hands, Jack reminds himself, which means that this truly does hinge on what Jack is about to do. 

They don’t talk as Ianto races through the streets of Cardiff, vaguely following the trail of destruction that Abaddon has left in its wake. Finally they stumble upon some scrubland and Ianto stops the car abruptly, Jack tumbling out and instantly groaning in pain. He strides towards the creature before them, Ianto slamming the SUV’s driver side door behind him and racing to catch up with Jack. 

“What are you going to do?” He asks in trepidation, likely having some inkling of Jack’s plans. That’s the trouble - Jack loves Ianto for his intelligence, and the speed at which he can puzzle things out, but given the time he’s had to think things through, he’ll almost certainly be working on a way to stop Jack. Maybe he _should’ve_ taken Owen with him, Jack thinks to himself, because he’s the one member of the team who presumably wouldn’t give a damn what happened to Jack, as long as it stopped the end of the world. 

“If Abaddon is the bringer of death, let's see how he does with me,” Jack says breathlessly, almost hysterical. “If he feeds on life, then _I'm_ an all you can eat buffet.”

Ianto stops Jack with a hand to his chest, a look of sheer horror in his eyes. “You can’t! You’re too weak, it’ll destroy you!”

“I have to, and you need to go. Get _out_ of here. _Go!_ Drive as fast as you can,” Jack orders Ianto, the pair watching as Abaddon crushes a block of flats as if it were made of paper. He shoves Ianto away from him, hearing a broken sob break forth from Ianto’s throat as Jack rounds on the creature. 

“Bring it _on!_ ” Jack roars, successfully attracting Abaddon’s attention. As the beast’s shadow falls over him Jack feels a force he’s never felt before wash over his body, the accompanying pain indescribable. He falls to his knees, crying out in agony, as the beast feeds on his countless lives yet to come. 

At least he can die with Ianto more or less by his side, Jack thinks distantly as he feels every last drop of life being wrenched from his body. He hates that he’s hurting Ianto so badly by doing this, hates that he hasn’t been able to resolve things properly with Owen or even say a single _word_ to the man, thanks to his own stubbornness and sensitivity. He wishes that he’d had more time to work out how to untangle the chaotic mesh of feelings that Owen has evoked over the time that Jack has known him. But this is the only way. 

_Owen, I’m sorry,_ Jack thinks as the edges of his vision blur and blacken. _Ianto, I love you._

Then, there is nothing. 


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ianto and Owen wait desperately for Jack to come back to life after defeating Abaddon. Jack revives and gets the shock of his life. (Or should that be lives...?)

Jack looks so still.

Ianto is used to seeing his soulmate constantly in motion, smiling and leaning into someone’s space or dashing about, his coat swishing behind him. Jack is always folding and unfolding his arms, shoving his hands into his pockets, then changing his mind and patting someone on the shoulder. Jack is leaning against door frames; he is kicking his feet up on his desk with a cocky grin despite Ianto’s judgemental looks; he is firmly pushing Ianto against a wall and kissing him senseless. These are the movements that make up Jack Harkness, that make him Jack Harkness, in fact.

Ianto looks down at the body in the open morgue drawer, with its eyes closed and its skin pale and blue-tinted, and almost cannot believe that this is the same man. 

He certainly doesn’t want to believe it, that’s for sure. Ianto is still hoping with everything that he’s got in him that Jack will wake up, that he’s just taking longer than usual because he was so weak when he fought Abaddon. Jack has always said that he can come back from anything, and Ianto has been given no reason to believe otherwise. Well, aside from all the currently available evidence, that is. 

“He’s ice cold,” Owen says quietly from where he’s standing at Ianto’s side. “No vital signs.” Ianto can see Gwen and Tosh bow their heads sorrowfully in his peripheral vision. 

“But he never has vital signs when he dies,” Ianto replies absently, “that’s the point. He’s always told us that he can’t die. That he’s a fixed point, as he puts it.”

“Ianto… I think he was wrong.” Owen rests a comforting hand on Ianto’s shoulder, and Ianto leans in to him minutely. He’s still angry at Owen for shooting Jack, but right now he’s willing to put that aside in favour of the support that he knows Owen will offer. 

“I want to sit with him,” Ianto says, and reaches over to brush a couple of strands of hair off Jack’s forehead, the backs of his fingers lingering on Jack’s cheek.

“Ianto,” Owen says pityingly, but Ianto repeats himself, determined to wait until Jack wakes up again. There’s a short pause before Owen speaks again.

“At least let me stay with you?” Owen must be feeling really guilty about shooting Jack, Ianto thinks, because there’s no way he’d volunteer for such tedium otherwise. 

“No,” Ianto replies, “you go. I’ll be fine here.” His gaze still hasn’t left Jack’s face, and he hears Owen clear his throat awkwardly, before three sets of footsteps move away from the drawer and make their way towards the exit. 

And so, Ianto sits. And waits. And sits. And waits. Gwen and Tosh try to bring him food and coffee, or to engage him in conversation about whatever is going on in the rest of the Hub, but to no avail. Ianto notices that Owen is avoiding the morgue, although whether it’s Jack or Ianto who is responsible for this, Ianto doesn’t know.

Eventually, it reaches the point where the other two have somehow cajoled or coerced Owen into coming down to see Ianto rather than skulking about, or presumably watching Ianto on the CCTV.

“Okay, enough is enough, Ianto. Take a break and let me sit with him,” Owen says wearily, running his hand down Ianto’s arm. Ianto looks up at him from where he’s leaned over Jack’s body, and the look in Owen’s eyes is deeply troubled, yet resigned. 

“I feel… well, to be honest with you, I feel bloody awful,” Owen admits, looking away from Ianto towards Jack’s immobile form. “Things escalated so fast back there, and now I just keep coming back to the same question - if I hadn’t shot him first, would he have survived this? Is this all my fault?”

“In all honesty? I don’t think so,” Ianto replies. “A creature that powerful would have done this to him regardless of whether he was in rude health or not.”

Owen fidgets, as if unwilling to accept this, and then says in a small voice, “can you forgive me for this?”

“Yes, Owen,” Ianto replies. “I already have. You weren’t to know that this would happen, and besides, I’ve already shot _you_ , so it would be just a _little_ hypocritical to tear you a new one over it.” This is enough to draw a small snort out of Owen. 

“I know, I know,” Owen says, shifting from one foot to the other. “But… can I take my turn and sit with him anyway?” 

“Okay,” Ianto mumbles, allowing Owen to pull him away from Jack’s body and into a hug. 

“Okay,” Owen whispers, letting Ianto go so that he can take up his place at Jack’s side. _It’s just for now,_ Ianto reminds himself. _He’ll be back to help Owen as soon as he can._

Ianto slowly plods upstairs, but ends up in Jack’s office instead of the kitchen or the bathroom. He leans over to straighten a pile of papers on Jack’s desk, and when he looks up his eyes meet the age-softened wool of Jack’s coat, hanging on the hat stand by the door. 

Tears forming in Ianto’s eyes, he walks over to the coat and removes it from the stand almost reverently, his hands shaky. He brings it to his nose and inhales deeply, realising with a shock that he’s trying to commit the smell of Jack to memory. 

The tears come thick and fast then, soaking into the material where Ianto still holds it close, wishing he could hold its late owner instead. 

***

“Fucking hell, Jack.”

Owen stares down at Jack, the events of the past couple of days finally sinking in as his mind slows down enough to catch up with it all. _God,_ this is all so fucked up. 

Despite what Ianto had said before he left, Owen _knows_ that this is his fault. If he hadn’t got so angry at Jack, felt so hurt and rejected when his soulmate was only trying to do his job and keep them all safe, then maybe this wouldn’t have happened. Typical hotheaded behaviour, but he’d learned that he couldn’t expect any better of himself after the loss of Katie had sent him off the rails and into the arms of Torchwood, and Jack. 

Katie hadn’t even been his soulmate, but Owen hadn’t cared, had wanted to build a life with her anyway. They’d _chosen_ each other, chosen to commit to each other, and that had felt more real than any ridiculous words on each other’s bodies, and a one-in-a-million chance of finding the person who would utter them. Owen hadn’t really cared for soulmates until he’d met Ianto, and Jack. 

Jack, who hadn’t asked Owen if Katie had been his soulmate, but had done his best to comfort him anyway. 

Jack, who had welcomed him into the team and given him a purpose again. 

Jack, who has never cut him slack, not once, but who is arguably the person who’s believed in Owen the most, maybe even more so than Ianto, despite Owen’s worries to the contrary.

Jack, who is now lying dead in a morgue drawer, because Owen couldn’t just suck it up and tell Jack about the soulmate mark, choosing instead to let himself become increasingly bitter and withdrawn until events reached their bloody end. 

Owen feels a single tear roll down his cheek and drop on to the material of the body bag. He reaches out to wipe it away and brushes Jack’s arm with his knuckles. The chill of Jack’s skin shouldn’t be startling to him, as a medical professional used to dealing with both earthly and extraterrestrial cadavers. But Jack is normally so warm, practically like a furnace when he, Ianto and Owen are all in bed together. More than once, Owen has snuck his cold feet over Ianto’s to tangle with Jack’s, though only when he’s been sure that both Jack and Ianto are out cold, of course. 

_Jack would be the body heat thief right now, if he could move, or feel_ , Owen thinks with a morbid kind of irony. He laughs humourlessly, then does it again. He’s trying to feel something, anything to break the almost dreamlike numbness that came over him like a veil the minute Ianto entered the Hub earlier, struggling under the weight of Jack’s limp body.

The laughs keep coming, and Owen ends up doubled over, an exact mirror of his reaction to Jack’s first death of the crisis. They don’t help him to feel, though, the sound ringing hollow, hysterical, senseless. The tears stream down his cheeks as he laughs and laughs, and Owen knows that the others must be watching on the CCTV and worrying, but he can’t bring himself to care. He’s just empty.

Eventually, the laughter stops and his breath slows. Owen slowly stands upright, mindful of the inevitable oncoming head rush, and wipes his eyes. He takes a seat in the chair that Ianto has conveniently left behind, rests his elbows on the drawer and his chin in his hands, and waits. 

And waits.

And waits until his arse is numb, until he can feel pins and needles in his toes, until his eyes start to sting with the effort of staying focused on one spot for so long. Owen waits until his head feels heavy in his hands, until his spine feels like it might be permanently curved in the wrong direction, until he feels like he’s turned to stone, a monolith commemorating the life of an immortal man who once saved the Earth from monsters.

And still, it doesn’t feel like long enough, because Owen knows now that he will wait a lifetime for Jack Harkness, if that is what it takes to bring him back.

His train of thought is interrupted by the arrival of Tosh, who leans against the mortuary doors and gives him a sharp look over Jack’s body. Again, Owen has the sense that Tosh somehow implicitly understands some of what Owen is feeling, and he finds this strangely comforting. 

Hey, Tosh,” Owen says softly, and Tosh smiles at him.

“Hey Owen,” she replies, and crosses her arms over her chest.

“How’s Ianto doing?” Owen asks, and Tosh’s smile turns sad.

“About as well as you’d expect,” she says carefully, and Owen grimaces. Yeah, he’d thought as much. 

The two stare at each other for a moment longer, before Tosh’s gaze flicks down to Jack.

“It's been days,” Tosh points out, though it clearly pains her to do so. Owen starts - he hadn’t noticed that so much time had passed. It feels like it was mere hours ago that he was stuck in the Hub, fretting and worrying about Ianto and Jack’s plan to save the city.

“We have to face up to it. He's not coming back.”

“I believe in him,” Owen says adamantly. “Ianto does, too. He’ll come back. He always does.”

“Maybe this time you need to let him go, Owen,” Tosh says knowingly. Owen doesn’t budge, and with a sigh Tosh pushes off the wall of cold storage, heels clicking on the walkway as she heads back upstairs.

When Tosh is out of sight, Owen looks down at Jack again and reaches for his hand almost reflexively, despite never having done it before. Oh, he’s wanted to, of course. He’s had the urge to be close to Jack as long as he’s known the man, the power of the soulmate attachment and Jack’s uniquely magnetic personality combining to form a potent craving. Owen has been suppressing this urge as long as he can remember but now, with absolutely nothing to lose, he allows himself to reach out and touch.

Owen takes Jack’s hand in his and holds it like it’s something fragile, which he supposes it is, now. Fragile is not a word that Owen would ever have associated with Jack before this moment, but now it seems apt. In death, Jack is fragile.

“God, I’m sorry, Jack,” Owen whispers, “I’m sorry I made you fragile. I’m sorry I broke you, once and for all. I loved you, you know. Still do, and I know that’s weird but I just can’t bloody help myself. I love you, Jack, and I _need_ you to come back, for me, and for Ianto. _Please._ ”

Owen presses Jack’s cold hand to his cheek, squeezing his eyes shut and remembering the feeling of Jack’s skin on his. He can’t do this any more, _they_ can’t do this any more. He has no idea how he can let go of a man he’s only just admitted to loving, who he’s lost before Owen could even tell him so, but he has to try, for Ianto’s sake if not for his own.

“Goodbye,” Owen says softly, and leans down to press the briefest of kisses to Jack’s slack mouth. “Come back for me, Jack.” 

Then he lifts his head, throws his shoulders back and walks away, leaving Jack behind him.

***

The world is a swirling mist of blacks, then purple-red-oranges, then bright white, when Jack awakes to a bone-deep ache and the feeling of a kiss on his lips. He could swear that he can smell Owen’s cologne, bizarrely, though how he has the available brain function at present to recognise the scent, he really couldn’t say.

“Come back for me, Jack,” he hears Owen say from somewhere above his left ear, and then Owen’s footsteps move away from him, echoing off the walls. He must be in the morgue, then, which is unexpected. How long has he been out?

Jack spends a few moments acclimatising to having senses again, because each awakening after a death feels a little like rebirth, or so he imagines. Everything is new, fresh, confusing and loud, even down in the depths of the Hub. Lights hum and flicker, casting shadows on to his eyelids, and pipes gurgle in the walls. 

Finally, Jack opens his eyes, blinking a few times at the harsh whiteness from the strip lights on the wall above him. He twitches his fingers, then his toes, testing everything out again. He’s back. He’s really back. 

And apparently, he owes this to Owen? Though he dismisses the possibility just as quickly as it appears, sure that he must have imagined the whole thing, the thought is enough to jolt him upright, which in turn sends him tumbling off the morgue drawer and on to the hard tile below. 

“ _Ow,_ ” Jack croaks, lying still for a few moments and then trying to move again. He’s a little more successful this time, managing to roll on to his front and push himself up into a kneeling position. From there, he swings a still-leaden arm up to grasp the side of the drawer, taking a few deep breaths. Finally, he pushes up to a standing position, still clutching at the metal beneath his hand. He feels a little drunk, as he often does after a death, and his head is spinning like he’s on a merry-go-round.

When he feels marginally less queasy and disoriented, Jack slowly steps away from the wall of bodies and gingerly makes his way upstairs. He sees Tosh and Ianto working away near the cog door as soon as he rounds the corner, Tosh spotting him immediately and running over to him as fast as her feet can carry her. She throws herself into Jack’s arms and he hugs her tightly, smiling into her hair. Gwen flings her own arms around the pair and laughs giddily, Jack wriggling an arm out from between the two to hug Gwen back properly.

Ianto has by now noticed him and strides over purposefully, Jack letting go of Tosh and Gwen to meet him half-way. Ianto just stands there when they’re about a metre apart, as if he can’t quite believe that Jack is really alive, really okay. Jack just reels him in with a hand on his shoulder, Ianto instantly tucking his face into the crook of Jack’s neck and inhaling deeply. Jack strokes a soothing hand over Ianto’s back and the pair rock slowly from side to side, Jack taking just as much comfort from the embrace as Ianto is. 

Jack draws back an inch and carefully cups Ianto’s face, his hands still seeming a little large and unwieldy with lack of use. He leans in and presses his lips firmly to Ianto’s, feeling a rush of warmth run through his body at the contact. He’s not sure where he goes when he dies, but _god,_ he just knows somehow that he missed Ianto while he was there. His Ianto, his partner, his soulmate. 

The sound of a heavy case falling to the floor causes Jack to break off the kiss, and he looks over to see Owen at the other end of the space, eyes wide and mouth hanging open in shock. Jack steps around Ianto as delicately as he can, a sudden wave of an almost unidentifiable emotion washing over his body. If Jack didn’t know better, he’d say it was _love._

The two men walk slowly towards each other, stopping on the raised walkway in front of the water tower. Jack’s hands hang limply by his sides, and he’s aware of the impassive expression on his face, forever protecting him against letting some unwanted emotion slip out into the world. Owen’s hands flex nervously, the stunned look now warring with one of immense guilt.

“I’m…” Owen trails off, and Jack can see tears forming along his lashes. He can’t meet Jack’s gaze, but Jack doesn’t need him to. Everything between them became ancient history the minute Jack revived with the scent of Owen lingering in his nostrils, and the quiet words uttered into the chasm of the mortuary.

“I forgive you,” Jack says sincerely, and Owen starts to cry. Before he can even make a sound Jack’s hand is on the back of his neck and he’s drawing Owen in just as tenderly as he did Ianto, wrapping his other arm around Owen’s shoulders and letting Owen sob into his chest. The sounds being wrenched from Owen bring a lump to Jack’s throat and a tear to his eye, and he rubs Owen’s shoulder firmly, trying to tether Owen to the moment with as much physical contact as he can.

“It’s okay, I’m here, it’s okay,” he murmurs into the crown of Owen’s head, hearing Gwen and Tosh step back and Ianto step closer. Jack looks up and makes eye contact with the others, still holding Owen close. 

“I want you all to listen to me,” he says, his voice quiet but firm. “You will never be just a blip in time, Ianto Jones. Not for me. None of you will. You’re my _team_ , the first team I’ve ever had in the century and a half that I’ve been alive, and that’s forever. You’re irreplaceable, each and every one of you. And yes, that does include you,” he says, ducking his head to address Owen and coaxing a wet laugh out of the other man.

“Jack…” Ianto replies, stepping up next to his partners, and Jack kisses his forehead.

“Doesn’t need saying,” Jack reassures Ianto. “Y’know what _does_ need to happen, though? I need to get out of this getup and have a shower!” He gestures down at himself in disgust and the others laugh, Owen reluctantly letting go of him and allowing Ianto to slip an arm around his waist.

Ambling off to his bunker with increasing stability, Jack carefully climbs down the ladder and strips off the modesty gown he’s apparently been in for quite some time. He steps into the shower and sighs in relief at the cascade of hot water hitting his back, the ache of several days of inactivity and death finally starting to work its way out.

It’s only as Jack is scrubbing away the grime and sweat that he notices the words in the crook of his elbow, so small that he could easily have missed them. Just like he’s failed to notice them ever since he revived, in fact. Jack runs his fingers over the five syllables now etched into his arm where before there was only a stretch of tanned skin, mouthing them to himself in amazement. 

_Come back for me, Jack._

In the hundred-odd years that he’s been capable of complex thought, Jack has never heard of anyone developing a new soulmate mark after birth. But then, he supposes, he’s not _anyone,_ is he? He’s the man who can’t die and stay dead, the man who will live a thousand lives, thousands of times over. Why shouldn’t he get a new mark, all things considered?

What baffles him is that there’s no plausible candidate for the person who said them. Ianto had already been upstairs when he resurrected, Gwen and Tosh too, which means-

Oh.

_Oh._

Those words he heard just as he came to. That _kiss._ Jack hadn’t imagined it after all. Owen _kissed_ Jack, and now Jack has Owen’s words etched into his skin.

In the seconds before Abaddon had completely drained him, Jack had thought of Ianto, and of Owen. Jack had gone to his death knowing that he and Owen had something, that they just needed to talk things through and then maybe, just maybe…

And now, it would seem that Owen is also his soulmate. Fuck. 

_This is huge,_ Jack thinks to himself. _He has to tell Owen and Ianto._ But how?

How can he explain something thought by all available sources to be physically and psychologically impossible? How can he make Ianto and Owen believe him? Jack ponders these questions as he steps out of the shower and wraps a mildew-encrusted towel around his waist, quickly dressing in the one set of spare clothes he still keeps in the wardrobe. He leaps up to his office, his mental cogs already whirring away in an attempt to plan what he’ll say to Owen and Ianto this evening, how the three of them will make this work.

Jack sits down at his desk and aimlessly shuffles some paperwork about, his mind firmly elsewhere. It seems incredible to think that it’s been little more than an hour since he came back to life - so much has happened since then. His heart is thrumming in his chest, a smile weaving laughter lines across his face. He should be worrying about the Rift, which will almost certainly be more volatile now that it’s been unceremoniously wrenched open, or about how the team are doing after the events of however many hours or days ago. But Jack can’t stop smiling, can’t stop thinking about his plans for the evening. 

Restless as ever, Jack throws on his coat and strides out into the main area of the Hub, intent on finding Ianto and persuading him to brew more coffee for Jack. He glances over at the Doctor’s hand in the jar by the door out of habit, but stops in shock when he sees that it’s glowing and twitching erratically, the liquid bubbling away. He runs over and stops dead in front of the jar, still processing what this means. The sound of the TARDIS’s time rotor echoing through the Hub, the water tower acting like a conductor for the sound, is enough to snap Jack out of his daze. Scooping up the jar and the backpack stashed nearby, he throws the latter on to his back and makes a beeline for the exit.

_He has to find the Doctor,_ he thinks to himself, _he has to get fixed._ That way, he’ll mean it when he says that Ianto and Owen aren’t blips on his never-ending horizon. That way, Jack can be with them for as long as they all shall live.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ianto and Owen struggle to cope with Jack's absence. Aboard the Valiant, Jack misses Ianto and Owen more than ever.

It’s Monday again.

Owen wouldn’t normally bother making such an inane observation, if he’s honest. The days at Torchwood all seem to blur together, the whims of the Rift trumping any craving he may have for a regular work schedule.

Lately, though, he’s been struggling with the passing of time. Another day elapsed is another day without Jack after all, he thinks to himself as he flips over another leaf on the calendar on Jack’s desk. Ianto won’t do it any more, won’t even come into the room unless he absolutely has to, but Owen feels like someone should, like they owe it to Jack to keep things going in all senses of the word.

Owen feels like he’s being pulled in different directions, when it comes to Jack. On the one hand, he’s incredibly angry at him for disappearing off with his Doctor, for abandoning the team, and Ianto, and Owen. The fact that Jack didn’t even think to leave a _note_ , hasn’t got a message to them even after weeks and weeks of absence, hurts him more than he likes to admit.

But on the other hand, Owen can’t deny that he’s missing Jack. He imagines that the feeling must be akin to having a phantom limb - he’s constantly expecting Jack to crack a euphemistic joke in response to someone’s careless choice of words, constantly reaching out as if he’s seeking Jack’s shoulder or his arm. Each time there is nothing, and he’s reminded of his pain and his longing all over again.

It helps that he and Ianto still have each other, even though their bed feels too big at the moment, too empty. Owen curls tightly around Ianto at night and ignores the absence of warmth, jostling for space on Ianto’s chest or stomach now an increasingly distant memory. For what it’s worth, Owen is fairly sure that Ianto is studiously ignoring it too, no matter how much he insists that he isn’t thinking about it. Owen has caught him staring at Jack’s shirts hanging in the wardrobe on more than one occasion, mostly back when Jack had only been gone for a few days and they had all still had hope that he’d come back.

Owen isn’t so sure at this point, to be perfectly honest, despite Jack’s words and promises before leaving. Anything he and Ianto can give Jack, the Doctor can give him ten times over. Who’s to say that Jack won’t stay, and rock up a long while down the line having spent hundreds of years in the company of another ostensibly immortal being? How could he and Ianto ever compare?

And then there’s the added pressure of having to hide this dilemma from the team, and from Ianto too. Owen regrets a lot of things about how he, Ianto and Jack handled their arrangement before Jack disappeared, but top of the list is without a doubt his own inability to suck it up and tell Jack about the mark. But he’s made his bed, and now he has to lie in it. He has to put on a brave face for Ianto, who is still distraught no matter what he may say, and who still frequently wakes Owen up by sobbing into his chest or the pillow, shouting for Jack. 

Owen sighs as he looks at the bizarre coral-like plant displayed on Jack’s desk. He knows that as second-in-command and now de facto leader of Torchwood Three, he needs to toughen up, at least for the sake of Ianto and the others. But he has no idea how to stop his heart jumping in his chest every time he hears the proximity alarm blare out, or every time the Rift programmes cough out another unusually high reading.

Despite himself, Owen is still very much in love with Jack Harkness. And right now, he just needs him home.

***

Ah, mashed swede again. 

By Jack’s calculations, taking into account the few weeks when the Master attempted to starve him to death, that means that he must be hitting roughly the six-month mark on board the Valiant. Not that he bothers to work out how much time has passed since the end of the world as he knows it, mind you. 

His world ended the day the Master came into Jack’s boiler-room-cum-makeshift-cell, pulled out a laptop and showed him footage of Gwen, Tosh, Owen and Ianto dying on a mountainside in the Himalayas, over and over again. 

Jack _thinks_ that was about three months ago, give or take, but the days all blur together on the Valiant. Each new death that the Master inflicts upon him takes an ever increasing toll, and now it can take him several days to revive after a particularly nasty demise. 

There are some small silver linings, Jack supposes. Martha’s family are some of the best and bravest people he’s ever met, though admittedly he’d have preferred to do so under different circumstances. Tish always has a smile on her face for him when she shows up to spoon him whatever mulch is scheduled for that week, no matter how dishevelled and bloodied he is. And he gets to see the Doctor sometimes, even if Jack has to do all the talking, while the Doctor just sits there in his wheelchair and stares into the distance. Jack’s pretty sure that these visits are designed to torment them both even more, but when has Jack ever had a normal reaction to traumatic circumstances?

So, Jack focuses on these little things, barely avoiding the constant breakdowns when his mind strays to warm brown eyes and a beaten up old leather jacket, or an arched eyebrow and an impeccable suit. 

Because when they get out of this, and Jack knows that they will get out of this, he’ll go back and save them. He and the Doctor will travel back to before any of this happened and rescue them all. This hope of saving his friends and his soulmates is the only thing that keeps Jack going; sometimes it feels like the only thing that’s keeping his heart beating. 

Jack will save his team, and he’ll explain himself to Owen and Ianto, and then he’ll finally be with them, in whatever way they’ll have him. 

***

It’s time to feed the Weevils again. 

Ianto sighs as he lugs the huge buckets of fodder down the stairs to where the Hub’s permanent residents whine and groan behind metal and plexiglass. While he doesn’t mind looking after Myfanwy really, and enjoys slipping her the odd bar of chocolate as a treat, he can’t say the same of Weevil care. 

What he can say of it, though, is that it keeps his mind firmly occupied. As do the rest of his daily jobs: reorganising the Archives, filling out paperwork for himself and often the rest of the team, cleaning, making coffee, the odd Rift retrieval. With the exception of retrievals, they’re fairly menial tasks that require just enough brain power to stop his thoughts from heading in… unfortunate directions. They’re what Ianto needs right now, to keep from thinking about J-

And there he goes again, Ianto thinks as he inspects the cell block and contemplates giving it another mop. It’s hard to tell whether the grime that coats the walls and floors is recent and removable, or built up indelibly over so many years that any hope of removing it disappeared at some point in the 1930s.

Ianto keeps busy, and he doesn’t think, and this strategy works for him until it doesn’t. 

He breaks down deep in the Archives one day, after he finds an old sepia photograph of Jack, foxed and mildewy with age. He slides down to the floor between his desk and the wall, clasping the picture tightly enough to cover it in creases. 

This is where Owen finds him several hours later, eyelashes clumped together with dried tears and the photograph torn into tiny shreds of paper that now litter the floor. Ianto allows himself to be pulled up and into Owen’s arms and the pair cling to each other desperately for a few moments, both tacitly admitting to the other that Jack’s absence has left a hole in their chests that still feels raw and bloody months later.

Then, Ianto steps back, wipes his eyes, and lets his usual mask fall over his features. He can see Owen’s eyes shutter too, though not quite as successfully as Ianto, from experience. The pain is still visible in his eyes, his reactions more uninhibited in general than Tosh and Gwen’s. Ianto has his suspicions about why this might be, but since this involves thinking about J- about things that he would prefer not to think about, he repeatedly files them away for future reference.

Ianto smooths a hand down the front of his now-creased suit jacket, nods to Owen and strides out of the Archives, needing to be around the rest of the team to give himself a reason to keep up the façade. Owen follows close behind him, hurrying to keep up with Ianto’s brisk pace.

With every step, Ianto’s resolve hardens again, his shell of carefully cultivated apathy falling back into place. The team are doing fine without- as they are. They don’t need - anyone else. 

So what if he stays away? Ianto doesn’t need Jack any more.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An old friend of Jack's shows up to cause chaos in Cardiff, and after months of fear and miscommunication Jack, Ianto and Owen are finally able to talk things out.

“ _Rear of the Year_ , 5094. Still looking good.”

Jack spins in surprise when he hears the voice of Captain John Hart behind him, his features quickly hardening into a scowl. John should be with Gwen finding another canister, and the fact that he isn’t spells trouble. 

As if on cue, Jack’s mobile rings, but John instantly plucks it out of his hand and tosses it aside.

“Cute boy, ringing to warn you about me,” John comments smugly, and Jack’s eyes flash with anger. John holds out a hand and demands the canister, his tone practically apathetic.

“If you've harmed them in any way…” Jack brandishes the canister like a threat. He won’t hesitate to send John sprawling into another dimension with the thing primed and ready to go, if his former partner (in all senses of the word) has done _anything_ to hurt his team, to hurt Ianto and Owen. (Okay, so Ianto and Owen might not _want_ to be singled out from the rest of the team any more, after Jack’s disappearance and miraculous return, and his botched attempt to explain where he’d been and why he had nothing to show for it. In his defence, the Doctor wasn’t able to ‘fix’ him after all, and merely thinking about that year on board the Valiant instantly sends Jack into a full-blown panic with accompanying flashbacks, but he supposes that the rest of the team aren’t to know this.)

“You know, they're pretty but stupid,” John is saying when Jack zones back in. “You used to have better taste.” Jack has to resist the urge to roll his eyes at John’s jealousy, reminding himself that he was exactly the same back when the pair used to operate together.

“Doesn’t look like that from here,” Jack says firmly and a little disdainfully. He has some limited sympathy for John, considering their history, but it only stretches so far. 

“Just give it here,” John replies, the veneer of nonchalance slipping ever so slightly.

“Radiation cluster bombs? _Really_?” 

John laughs in disbelief, rolling his own eyes. “Let’s not get hung up on details.”

“Little embarrassing that you needed help to find them!” Jack starts to laugh, almost pitying John now. Almost.

“A little humiliating _you_ fell for the scam! Your dolly birds did all my leg work.” Oh, so John _really_ thinks that Jack wasn’t going along with the plan just to get him off-world as quickly as possible? _God, it really has been a long time,_ Jack thinks wryly. John would’ve called him on his bluff when they were running together, but a lifetime of different experiences has clearly made Jack unreadable to John now. 

John, on the other hand, is as transparent as ever - Jack knows exactly what the man’s response will be when he asks, “is that what you wanted?”

“What I want is for you to come to your senses and join me, Jack,” John says with a strange smile on his face. He gestures to the night sky, the billions of stars obscured by city smog and light pollution. “How can you stay tied to one planet when there's thousands of worlds sparkling with wonder? We should be up there, among the stars, claiming them for our own. Just like before.”

“I can’t.” 

“Why not? What the hell is there to keep you here?” John’s tone is incredulous and oh, Jack knows that his answer will break John.

“Because I _moved on,_ and so should you. Here I am, in a new life, and you're still churning out the same old tunes.” John glares at him, then, and Jack prepares himself for the next verbal blow.

“Yeah, sure, because it’s the life that’s keeping you here and not Eye Candy. You could bring him along too, you know. We could all have some fun, if you can persuade him to ditch that stick up his ass-”

“ _Enough,_ John,” Jack grits out. “Ianto and I - aren’t like that. I know we both used to believe that-”

“Believe what? In common sense? C’mon, you’re just kidding yourself into believing all this soulmate and _one person for everyone_ bullshit.” John laughs derisively and Jack clenches his fist at his side.

“Well that’s where you’re wrong, John. Because I get the soulmate thing now, and for your information, I have _two_ soulmates, so we were _both_ wrong all those years ago.” Jack is still holding the canister aloft and can see John eyeing it, but they’re both too invested in hashing out this impromptu philosophical discussion for John to make any further grabs for it.

“ _Two?_ Which one is it, the one who looks like a rat that drowned in a vat of hair gel? The one with the face like a smacked arse? Doesn’t matter, I suppose - you’re still the poor sucker lumbered with two needy primitives when one is bad enough.”

“Oh, ha ha. Hell of a joke.” Now Jack does roll his eyes, and John takes a dangerous step towards him. Jack mentally calculates possible exit routes and ways to field John’s next move.

“It’s _you_ I’m laughing at! _Canister._ ” While his words maintain the illusion, John’s voice has lost all traces of mirth, his eyes cold and hostile.

Jack has had enough of this intellectual exercise. He wants John gone, and he’ll do whatever it takes to make that happen. So, he tests the weight of the canister in his hand, swings his arm around and lobs the metal cylinder over his shoulder, hearing it sail off into the Cardiff night. 

“ _Whoops,_ ” Jack comments sarcastically. John smiles at him, but there’s no warmth in it.

“ _Whoops,_ ” he echoes, placing his hands on Jack’s chest and pushing him over the edge of the roof. 

Jack shouts once, the cry echoing off the nearby buildings, his coattails fluttering in the wind as he plummets down, down, down, falling and falling until-

Nothing.

***

The bastard _shot_ Owen. 

Ianto is so angry. He’d thought that he understood the extent of his own rage when he’d felt Jack’s former partner press the muzzle of a gun against the back of his head, when John had taunted him about what he’d done to the others. But seeing it here and now, seeing Owen in so much pain and Tosh looking so worried for him, has sent his anger levels - and his blood pressure, he expects - through the roof.

Ianto recognises the irony, given that the months elapsed between his own gun-related indiscretion and now are only too few. However, he’s too incensed to pay it much heed at present, as he helps Tosh to half-carry Owen out of the warehouse. 

As Owen is crawling into the back of the SUV Ianto sees him slump into the seat suddenly, body wracked with spasms, and then suddenly Ianto is on the ground, fire licking up his spine. Jack is dead, then, and they really need to find Gwen and get Owen back to the Hub if he’s in that much pain, potentially even in shock. He had looked rather pale, but then he hardly ever sees the sunlight anyway, so Ianto couldn’t be sure. 

Luckily it’s a mercifully short death, and Ianto is on his feet and checking Owen over before Tosh can even get around the car to help him. Owen now seems as well as someone with a gunshot wound can be, though, which is strange, but not as pressing as the need to find Gwen and get back to the Hub.

“We really need to get to that shipyard,” Ianto says tightly and Owen nods, Tosh already sliding into the passenger seat. Ianto takes his place at the wheel, knuckles white on the plastic and rubber, and canes it.

Cardiff’s usual hellish traffic seems to have taken the day off, thank god, because they’re able to find Gwen and use the anti-toxin kit on her in the nick of time, Ianto biting at his nails all the way. He’s always said that Owen is always remarkably calm and focused when treating a patient in high-pressure situations, Ianto thinks faintly while watching him, even with a bullet wound in his own side. 

With Gwen safely ensconced on the back seat of the SUV, Ianto speeds back to the Hub. It’s been quite a while since he left Jack at the office block, and even with the death Ianto would certainly not be surprised to find him sitting in his office with his feet up on his desk when they arrive. 

The Hub is deserted, however, and Ianto looks at Owen in consternation. _Where the hell is Jack?_

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” Owen says, voicing their shared concerns, and Ianto nods.

“Me too. I think I should head back to the offices - he might need our help with John, or something.”

“I’ll come with you,” Owen immediately replies, and Ianto raises an eyebrow.

“Okay,” Ianto says carefully, and the two head back to the SUV at a run.

Sliding into the driver’s seat, he feels more than sees Owen buckle his seatbelt, and tears away from the curb with a screech. Owen flinches, and Ianto reaches over to squeeze his arm in apology.

The pair sit in silence for a couple of minutes before Ianto can’t help himself. “Are we going to forgive him?”

“ _We?_ ” Owen looks like he’s swallowed a lemon, and Ianto knows that he’s missing something but can’t direct his full attention to it right now, his eyes firmly on the road. “What ‘ _we’?_ ”

“You know, us as a team? Us as cohabitants of the same flat? That ‘we’?” Ianto catches Owen’s eye in the rear-view mirror. “Why, what did you think I meant?”

“Nothing,” Owen says quickly. “I just meant that he’s your partner, and I think it’s your call, really.” He sounds awkward, and Ianto wants to drop the topic, feeling bad for bringing up what is clearly a sensitive subject for his soulmate. But he knows that they need to talk this out before they see Jack, need to work out where the two of them stand before they confront him. His vague answers might fly with Tosh and Gwen, but Ianto _has_ to know why Jack left, and he has a feeling that Owen does, too.

“He asked me on a date earlier,” Ianto says, apropos of nothing, and he can see Owen look at him in confusion out of the corner of his eye.

“Ianto… you’re already partners,” Owen says slowly, and Ianto laughs a little hysterically. 

“I know _that_ ,” he replies, “but I think he meant it, y’know, symbolically. He said you could tag along, actually, because he probably owed you a stiff drink too!”

“Third wheeling you two all evening? I’d rather have Tosh sit me down and explain Einstein’s Theory of Special Relativity to me,” Owen says offhandedly, but Ianto can hear a false note in his voice. He glances over quickly to see Owen staring morosely out at the road ahead of them and carefully elects to say nothing, instead nudging Owen with his elbow. 

“Hey, we’re not _that_ bad,” he gently chides, before turning his full attention to the road, too. “And anyway, I’m not sure I want to go on it after all. I’m just… I’m still so angry with him, Owen,” Ianto says as they pull up to the office block. 

“I know,” Owen says, “and you should be, we all should be. He upped and left without even leaving a _note,_ for fuck’s sake! Who _does_ that?” Ianto nods in agreement, feeling around for his gun.

“... But despite all that, I still think you should take him up on it,” Owen says after a pause, and the two get out of the car. “After all, he’s gone to the trouble of asking you out, so he must be feeling pretty…”

Owen’s voice dies in his throat as he and Ianto see a figure folded unnaturally over a bench outside the office, knowing that it can only be one person.

“ _Fuck,_ ” Ianto manages, and sprints over to the bench with Owen following as quickly as he can manage. Ianto crouches down to confirm that Jack is indeed still out, Owen standing nearby. While they’ve seen Jack’s body a handful of times now, it never gets any easier, especially when he’s clearly suffered as much as he has this time.

“Oh Jack,” Ianto says softly, stroking his cheek lightly before straightening up. “Right, we need to get him down. Owen, do you reckon you’ll be able to help me?”

“I probably shouldn’t,” Owen replies, taking hold of Jack’s left shoulder, “but I will anyway. Come on, let’s get this done so I can lie down in the back of the SUV and curse the day I ever joined this bloody organisation.”

Ianto smiles grimly, before turning to take hold of Jack. Together he and Owen are able to lift Jack’s upper half off the bench, Ianto taking most of Jack’s weight as they slide his body into a seated position on the other side. Owen takes one hand off Jack’s shoulder to cradle his head before it hits the concrete divider, and Ianto is momentarily surprised by the tender gesture. He shakes himself, though, and reaches down to hoist Jack into a fireman’s lift, grateful that the SUV isn’t too far away. 

“What happened to me helping you with him?” Owen asks. Ianto looks him up and down and takes in his bloodied clothes, the bandages around his middle, and the deep lines of pain carved into his face.

“Yeah, no, absolutely not. Get the car unlocked, will you?” He reaches into his pocket with his free hand and tosses Owen the keys, before wrapping both arms tightly around Jack and plodding over to the SUV.

The pair manage to wrangle Jack into the backseat and Owen opts to slide in beside him, telling Ianto that he’ll “stop Jack bouncing around in the back like a very chiselled sack of potatoes.” Ianto shrugs and accepts this logic, but doesn’t fail to notice Owen carefully strapping Jack in, mindful of the coat. 

As they pull away from the offices, which Ianto is sure he’ll avoid for as long as he lives, Jack comes back to life with a gasp, startling Ianto and Owen both. Ianto is focused on the road and unable to spare a hand, and so it’s Owen who grabs Jack’s arm and explains where he is and what’s happened in a hushed voice.

Jack doesn’t reply, but he looks more than a little shaken from what Ianto can see in the rear-view mirror. Owen meets Ianto’s gaze and nods, before turning back to Jack. As Ianto watches, he takes hold of Jack’s hands and squeezes, keeping his voice low and soothing. Slowly but surely, Jack comes back to them, and Ianto lets out a sigh of relief. 

“Thank you,” Jack whispers a few minutes later. “Both of you. Thank you.”

Then, Jack lays his head on Owen’s shoulder, Owen automatically wrapping a grounding arm around him, and in various states of battered dishevelment, the three make their way back to the Hub.

***

“... What just happened? No, y’know what, never mind.”

Owen couldn’t agree with Gwen more, He scrubs a hand over the back of his head and turns to face the others, whose expressions range from confused and somewhat dissatisfied (Tosh) to really bloody hacked off (Gwen). Standing slightly apart from the others, Jack’s shoulders slump, but then he throws them back and turns to face the team with an overly bright smile plastered across his face.

“Right then, how about we camp out in a hotel for the next twenty-four hours?” He asks, shoving his hands in his pockets. Owen and the others are still so shell-shocked after the night’s events that it’s all they can do to nod silently.

“Great,” Jack says, “I’ll make a few calls. Owen, do we need to get you to a hospital?”

“Nah,” Owen replies, “I’ve had worse. I’ll just get my kit out of the SUV and patch myself up in the hotel. Frankly, it’ll probably be a more sterile environment than the autopsy bay, when you think of how hard they must work the poor sods on the cleaning staff.”

And this is how they end up stepping through the doors of one of Cardiff’s more upmarket hotels, their unkempt appearances probably making them stick out like a sore thumb, Owen thinks to himself. Whatever - he’s too bone-tired to give a shit.

Jack ends up securing them three rooms, which surprises Owen. Jack is being unexpectedly thoughtful, though god knows it’s merited considering his return from his prolonged absence, followed by his bar fight with his old partner and what eventually proved to be a very dangerous wild goose chase for the team.

As Jack reels off the numbers, Tosh and Gwen pair off, Ianto nimbly swipes another key from Jack’s hand and strides off down the corridor, and Owen looks at Jack, shrugs and follows Ianto.

As the pair step into their hotel room, Ianto drops down on to the bed and holds out his hands. Owen shuffles over to him, increasingly aware of the burning ache in his side, and steps into the bracket formed by Ianto’s limbs. He wraps his arms around Ianto’s shoulders, allowing Ianto to gently lean his head on Owen’s chest, and the two stay like that for a while, both silently processing the day’s events.

Eventually Owen peels away to dig through the wardrobe for a dressing gown and slippers, staking his claim to the bathroom. Not that it’ll make a difference - he knows that Ianto will simply join him in the shower, as he does only moments after Owen steps in. Actually, Owen’s rather glad of the company today - he’s feeling a little shaky now that the adrenaline is wearing off, and it’s quite nice to have a firm chest to lean against. Ianto glances down at his side and winces, turning his attention to gently wiping the partially dried blood off Owen’s torso with a soft cloth. Owen hums in satisfaction at the sensation, hissing a breath in through his teeth when Ianto veers too close to his tender side. 

When they’re significantly cleaner than before, they step out of the shower, both opting for robes instead of their dirty clothes. Owen roots around in his medical kit for the appropriate paraphernalia, beginning the laborious process of inspecting the wound for debris, disinfecting it and the surrounding area, and suturing himself up. Ianto hops up on to the counter across from him, carefully watching his partner work, and leans forward to kiss Owen on the forehead when he ties off the final suture and strips off the latex gloves. Once the kit is back in order, Owen grabs Ianto’s hand and drags him back into the bedroom, the two flopping down on to the bed immediately.

They’ve been lying there for a couple of minutes, Ianto stroking his thumb over Owen’s and Owen focusing on relaxing every muscle in his body incrementally, when there’s a knock on the door. Ianto hauls himself up to check who it is and returns with a room service tray, which has Owen fighting to sit up, his stomach growling pathetically.

“But we didn’t order-” Ianto cuts himself off and shakes his head, already tucking a napkin into the deep ‘v’ of his dressing gown.

“Uh, that would be me. Your mystery room service orderer, I mean.”

Jack knocks on the wall as he steps into the room, shutting the door behind him with a quiet click.

“Jack.” Owen scrambles into a seated position, fighting with the surprisingly floaty material of his attire. He feels very exposed in just a dressing gown, despite the knowledge that it’s nothing Jack hasn’t seen before in all the time that the three of them have lived and worked together.

“I thought you might be hungry,” Jack says by way of an answer, and gestures to the armchair across from the bed. “May I?”

“Sure,” Ianto says finally, and Jack lowers himself into the chair, moving almost as gingerly as Owen. Whatever he got up to during his absence must have taken its toll, Owen realises, because it’s taken Jack a hell of a lot longer to revive and heal this evening.

Ianto and Owen continue eating, Ianto belatedly offering the plate to Jack, and the three chew thoughtfully for a few minutes.

“I’m sorry you guys had to peel me off that bench,” Jack says eventually around a mouthful of food. 

“Don’t apologise for _that_ ,” Ianto says. “It’s John Hart who should be apologising. What the hell _happened_ between you two, anyway?”

“Well, let’s just say that John and I no longer see eye-to-eye on some… matters of personal philosophy,” Jack says carefully, “and in a nutshell, he had a hissy fit and threw me off a building. I should’ve seen it coming, really.”

“What kind of ‘personal philosophy’?” Owen asks suspiciously.

“Okay, I guess I walked into that one by being so vague,” Jack acknowledges. “Yeah, okay. Well, John and I were partners at the Time Agency, as you know, and back then neither of us really subscribed to the soulmate theory. We slept with who we wanted to, and we didn’t even give the words on us a second thought. John tried to tempt me back, though his old spiel doesn’t work nearly so well after so many years apart. When I turned him down and ditched his canister, he ditched me, so to speak.”

“I see,” Ianto says diplomatically, and Owen rolls his eyes.

“Right, so where are you on the whole soulmates thing now, then? Because you and he looked awfully friendly yesterday. Multiple times.” Owen nudges Ianto, trying to ensure that he’s listening. 

“Oh, I’m serious about it now, all right,” Jack says quietly, looking both of them in the eyes. Owen is thoroughly confused by this, but shovels some more food into his mouth to cover this up. Silence falls over the three of them once more.

Eventually, Jack looks up from his food and says, “out with it, c’mon. I can tell you’re both dying to ask.”

“Where were you _really,_ Jack?” Owen asks with his mouth full, impatient. Ianto is quieter, clearly waiting to assess Jack’s reactions. Jack tenses, but Owen sees the moment when he forces himself to relax, letting out a long breath.

“It’s… a long story,” Jack replies, and Ianto rolls his eyes. “Hey, I haven’t finished yet, Ianto! It’s a long story, and I’ll try and… condense it down, I guess, make it a little more _palatable_.”

And so Jack tells them about his time on the Valiant, and about how he was gone for much longer than any of them realised, and about the hellish reality he’d helped to reverse. Frankly, Owen wouldn’t describe _any_ of what Jack has recounted as ‘palatable’ in the _slightest,_ so he can’t imagine how much worse the extended edition of the story would be.

“ _Jesus,_ ” Ianto murmurs when Jack has finished, looking torn between staying seated on the bed and going to Jack. “Jack, I’m sorry we were so… you know. We had no idea.”

Jack waves them off. “I know, and I get it. I did disappear without so much as a goodbye, after all - all that planning for the day the Doctor came back, and I didn’t even think to write you all a letter. Not even a post-it! You’re right to be mad at me, but I hope that you can forgive me, if I promise to do better, and make good on that promise.”

“Oh, I’ve already forgiven you, _twpsyn,_ ” Ianto admonishes. “I knew I’d forgiven you as soon as I saw you draped over that bench like a discarded bloody piece of clothing, to be honest.” Owen nods in agreement, though he’s fairly sure that he forgave Jack the minute the man appeared in that house and stopped them all from being murdered by an anthropomorphic blowfish. 

“Oh,” Jack says pensively, and Ianto reaches over to hit him gently on the arm, stopping himself at the last minute when Jack flinches. Owen sees him angle his wrist differently, reaching for Jack’s hand instead.

“But, listen, I need you to know why I had to go. Because when I started out, the only thing I wanted was for the Doctor to cure me, so that I could get back to my normal, mortal life of crime and debauchery. But then Torchwood came along, and then _you guys_ came along, and suddenly I had a much more urgent reason. I had to go with the Doctor, to try and get him to fix me, so that I could be with _you_.”

Owen looks at Ianto in confusion and sees the expression mirrored on Ianto’s face. Jack looks between the two of them as if he’s hoping for something, some kind of response, but Owen isn’t sure what that should be.

Finally he sucks it up and asks, “er, forgive me if I’m asking for something which is blindly obvious but… which one of us?”

“Both of you,” Jack says finally, reaching out and taking Owen’s hand, too. Owen looks down at their joined hands, then back up at Jack, then at Ianto, and then at Jack again. His brain is stuck on the words ‘both of you’, and they bounce around inside his skull, drowning out any semblance of coherent thought.

“ _What?_ ” Ianto exclaims, clearly utterly bemused, but Owen is suddenly angry. What the _fuck_ kind of game is Jack playing?

“Now you listen here, Jack Harkness,” Owen gets out between gritted teeth, wrenching his hand out of Jack’s grasp. “I have not spent _years_ hiding a soulmate mark from _you,_ pretending I didn’t care and couldn’t feel you dying _every single time,_ to be some… some unrequited _pity fuck_ because you want us all to play happy families again like we did before! Oh yeah, Ianto, that’s one thing even _you_ don’t know about,” he quips, turning to see Ianto’s mouth hanging open in shock. “It’s just under my hairline, luckily, so that’s kept you both from finding it.”

“Wait, _what?_ ” Now Jack is astonished, while Ianto’s brows have knitted together.

“Owen, what the fuck? Why didn’t you _tell_ me?” Ianto rounds on Owen now, but Owen won’t back down, his own anger still fizzing wildly in his chest and stomach.

“Oh, _come on,_ Ianto! How was I supposed to tell you that, knowing you’d make me tell Jack, and nothing would come of it? How could I ever tell _you two,_ Ianto, when Jack’s words are practically over your heart, like a fucking _fairytale?_ I’ve always felt like the lesser partner, I’ve _never_ meant as much to you two as-”

“Owen, shut up,” Jack says suddenly. He leans forward and takes Owen’s face in his hands, moving in until he’s inches away. Owen briefly forgets how to breathe. “May I?”

Owen nods slightly and Jack closes the gap, taking Owen’s lips in a kiss that is somehow tender and intense all at once. Owen tentatively reaches out and places a hand on Jack’s shoulder where it meets his neck, feeling the warmth pouring off Jack through the thin material of his shirt. One of Jack’s hands moves to the back of Owen’s head and his little finger brushes against his mark on Owen’s skin, every nerve ending firing hard enough to make Owen shudder. He can’t quite believe that this is happening, can’t quite believe that that’s _Jack’s_ tongue pressing against his bottom lip and Jack’s heady scent in his nostrils.

Eventually the two break apart, Jack’s eyes wide and his pupils blown. He smiles rakishly at Owen, and it’s all Owen can do to remember to blink. 

“I have your soulmate mark too, you idiot,” Jack says softly, and Owen hears the sound of a fork clattering on to the plate below it.

“Okay, while I hate to interrupt whatever this moment is… are you fucking _serious,_ Jack?” Owen almost feels sorry for Ianto, what with the mental whiplash that this evening’s revelations must be giving him.

“Yeah, hang on, Jack. How the _hell_ did you hide that all this time, and why the _hell_ didn’t you _tell us_?” Owen is pretty miffed, not least because this admission has really killed the delightfully warm buzz that Jack’s kiss had ignited in him.

“No, wait, that’s not what I meant! I haven’t had it that long!” Jack stands up from the chair and paces, as if the movement will help him work things out for himself, too. “Owen’s mark only appeared on me after Abaddon killed me, which I guess was when I realised just how much I cared about you despite all our fights. I only saw it when I got in the shower after I revived… well, after you revived me, I suppose.”

At this Ianto looks at Owen in confusion, but Owen mouths “ _later_ ” to him, and the pair turn back to Jack.

“I was about to tell you both that day,” Jack continues, “as soon as we got home in fact! But then the Doctor turned up, and I knew it was my only chance.”

“Oh my god, Owen,” Ianto says suddenly. “All those times you vanished the minute it looked like Jack was going to die! That comment you made to Gwen, when she was talking about her vision! The car, earlier! Ohhh, I should have seen this coming. But that still doesn’t explain the sudden appearance of a new soulmate mark, Jack.”

“Ianto has a point,” Owen comments, standing up to join Jack. “Are you _sure_ it’s mine? Awfully big coincidence, if you ask me.”

“I can prove it,” Jack says, unbuttoning his cuff and rolling up his sleeve. “Owen, do you remember what you said to me after you kissed me in the morgue?”

“Yeah, I think so,” Owen says, not quite following. “I said ‘come back for me, Jack’, I’m pretty sure.”

Ianto looks like he’s about to burst, desperate to ask about the kiss, but Owen flaps a hand at him, then rubs his shoulder affectionately.

“Look at my arm, Owen,” Jack says with no hesitation. Owen looks down and sees those same five words tucked into the inside of Jack’s elbow, curling over the soft skin. He reaches out and runs his fingers over the words in amazement, still not quite sure that he can believe what he’s seeing.

“But how is it possible to get another soulmate mark?” Ianto wonders aloud, shuffling along the bed to get a better look.

“No idea,” Jack says, shrugging, “but I suspect it might have something to do with me coming back to life. After all, if I’m being ‘reset to default’ every time I come back, as the Doctor puts it, then I guess it’s like I’m being reborn every time, in a manner of speaking? I guess I must have just been reborn with Owen’s name on me this time, after realising how I felt on that field with Abaddon.”

“... Yeah, alright, I’ll bite,” Owen says, retracting his hand, “but where does this leave us? We’ve got a _lot_ to work out now.”

Ianto and Jack nod in agreement. “We sure have,” Jack confirms, scratching at his neck. 

“Yeah,” Ianto adds, leaning into Owen’s side and pressing a kiss to somewhere around his hip bone, “including me convincing you that you mean _just as much_ to me as Jack, Owen, no matter where your respective soulmate marks may be!” 

“Yeah, alright, so I’m a bit of a drama queen,” Owen relents, smiling down at Ianto and then winking at Jack. “Maybe you’ve finally met your match, Harkness.”

Jack laughs fondly at the pair before grabbing hold of both their hands, shooting them both a look that is painfully earnest. “Listen, in all seriousness, I know I’ve got a _lot_ of grovelling to do, and we’ll take things as slowly as you both need, but… I’m yours. If you’ll have me, that is?”

Owen looks at Ianto, trying and failing to maintain a serious expression but ending up grinning at his partner. Or rather, his _other_ partner, he supposes.

“Jack, you fool, of _course_ we’ll have you,” Ianto tells him, standing up to join the other two. At any other time Owen would be commenting on the ridiculous image of the three of them standing holding hands like they’re in a children’s nursery rhyme, but right now he’s too focused on how ridiculously, deliriously happy he feels.

“We _love_ you, Jack,” Ianto adds. “We’ll have you, and you’ll have us, for whatever our version of ‘forever’ entails.”

Jack pulls Owen and Ianto into a bone-crushing hug, loosening his grip slightly when Owen squawks. Jack kisses the two on the cheek, and as Owen looks at his partners, _plural,_ he thinks that maybe the universe wasn’t playing a cosmic joke on him after all.

Maybe, just maybe, Owen has finally got his happy ending.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so, so much for reading if you made it this far! Feel free to drop by and say hi on twitter (@hetheyharkness) or tumblr (kingisdead), should you so desire it. Comments, kudos etc. are very much appreciated! Have a great day :D


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